In many ways, the Bible is a migrant's book — written by, for and about those who cross borders in search of safety, provision or promise. Abraham left his homeland, never fully settling. Ruth followed Naomi into a foreign land, with no certainty of welcome. Hagar wandered the wilderness, desperate for water, desperate for survival. Joseph, sold into slavery, would rise in a land not his own. And Jesus — Jesus, whose family fled persecution, knew the precarity of displacement, the vulnerability of exile. The story of God's people is, at its core, a story of movement, of refuge, of longing for home.
And yet, migration in these sacred stories is not merely survival — it is grace. It is the means by which God moves, reshapes and restores. Theologian Robert Chao Romero speaks of "migration as grace," the idea that movement itself is a conduit of God's unmerited favor. That in the crossing of borders, both the migrant and the land that receives them are drawn into a sacred exchange of blessing. This grace is not one-directional. It is mutual, a divine reciprocity.
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