I’ve seen versions of this meme circulating that place ICE agents at the nativity scene, arresting Mary, Joseph, and the Magi. Regardless of where you stand politically, this perspective deserves a careful response because it seriously distorts the biblical story and the claims Christianity actually makes.
The nativity is not an immigration story.
Mary and Joseph were not migrants, legal or illegal. Mary and Joseph were residents of Judea traveling within their own land in obedience to an imperial census. That is why they were in Bethlehem. They were acting in accordance with the law of the land, not in defiance of it.
The Magi were foreigners, not immigrants. As dignitaries from another court, they respected the sovereignty of the land they entered. They didn’t slip across a border. Their first stop was the royal palace, where they met King Herod, who then sent them to locate this newly born child-king.
And Jesus was never a refugee. The family fled the limited reach of Herod’s authority—but Bethlehem, Judea, and Egypt were all under the authority of the Roman Empire. It would be somewhat akin to moving to Florida to escape punitive homeschool laws in California.
Once you see this, the emotional manipulation collapses. The meme works only by importing modern immigration categories into a story where they simply do not exist.
The deeper issue it raises is how we imagine the relationship between law and love.
In Scripture, compassion is never set against moral order, personal responsibility, or lawful authority. These are not inventions of modern political or economic systems; they are woven into the fabric of creation itself. The Bible assumes borders, property, accountability, and obligation long before any modern ideology appears.
Herod isn’t condemned for representing authority—he’s condemned for abandoning justice to save his own skin. Instead of submitting to moral and imperial law, he stepped outside it. Scripture consistently critiques power-hungry rulers like Herod while still upholding law itself. Confusing legitimate authority with tyranny flattens the biblical story.
The New Testament does present a confrontation between Jesus and empire—but not the one this meme imagines. When early Christians proclaimed ‘Jesus is Lord,’ they used Caesar’s own language. Caesar claimed to be the divine Son of God who brought peace to the world. The Gospel says: No. That’s Jesus, not Caesar.
There has always been only one kingdom and one true King. Jesus Christ stands over all human systems, cultures, and ideologies. Yet Jesus does not come to abolish government, seize political control, or lead a social revolution. He comes to redeem rather than dismantle political and social systems. He comes to reclaim what was always His. And He does so not through coercion, but through the cross. By giving His life. His reign isn’t established by legislation, force, or political dominance. It is acknowledged freely, or not at all.
Christian faith does not require political dominance in order to endure. History shows the opposite: the church often grows most faithfully where it lacks political power and must rely on holiness, truth, and love rather than coercion.
Nor does concern for the vulnerable require rejecting law or responsibility. Law is actually required for proper care of the poor. It means we care for them rightly—through churches that provide actual help, communities that sponsor refugee families legally, believers who advocate for just immigration reform while respecting the rule of law. Grace and truth together, just as Jesus embodied them.
True care always works in harmony with right order, showing that God’s chief concern is forming a holy people who love rightly, live responsibly toward others, and worship Him above all else.
So, the Christmas story isn’t offering a choice between compassion and order. It presses a far deeper question: not which political system should prevail, nor whether religion should be enforced by the state. The question is whether we recognize the true King who comes without an army, without legislation, without revolution, without force—lying in a manger, the one who holds all things together and will one day judge every system, every ruler, and every heart with perfect justice and mercy.
Christians should be careful not to let emotionally powerful images do our moral reasoning for us. The nativity is not a political metaphor. It is a declaration: the world’s true Lord has come, and every human authority—including our own—stands accountable to Him.
