"Jesus Was A Refugee" Ad Forgets That After The Flight To Egypt, Jesus WENT HOME
02/12/2023
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Slate explains about the Superbowl ad which compares the Jesus, Mary, and Joseph’s Flight Into Egypt [Matthew 2:13–23] to Central Americans who are invading the U.S. across the Southern Border with the claim of persecution:

For many viewers of the Super Bowl, one ad amid the beer and tax software and car commercials may be particularly surprising. It might look something like this:

A guitar strums a melancholy tune. Black and white photos, depicting mothers, fathers, and sons living in what looks to be impoverished Central American towns, cycle through. An accented narrator describes a young and poor, but happy, family forced to leave their town. “One day, they heard the head of their country was sending soldiers to their town because he thought they were part of an insurrection,” the narrator says. The photos start to depict scenes of panicked flight through village streets and jungle roads, the faces of the family become anguished. “They were scared, hungry, and exhausted.”

Then the ad takes a turn: “But they were far away from the atrocities taking place… in Bethlehem.” On the screen, words flash in minimalist white: “Jesus was a refugee.”

[The Backstory to the Jesus Ad Coming to the Super Bowl
The political underpinnings of this campaign are hiding beneath the surface, by Molly Olmstead
February 11, 2023]

Slate is a little skeptical about the Evangelical foundation behind the ad—Slate is a little skeptical about Christianity in general—but as Revolver points out, the Signatry Foundation is no threat to Slate’s worldview.

Here’s the ad:

Here’s what John Zmirak wrote about this idea of Jesus as a refugee in 2003:

It’s common in certain circles nowadays to compare the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, or their search for a ”room at the inn,” to the plight of illegal immigrants. Bunk (as usual). These were no economic refugees, slipping across a border in search of higher carpentry wages. Joseph and Mary were law-abiding and obedient—to Caesar, who ordered them to Bethlehem for a census, and to God, who commanded they flee the tyrant Herod.

The illegals aren’t fleeing a Massacre of the Innocents—they’re risking the lives of their own children for more money, and they intend to settle permanently.

After Herod died, Jesus and family went home. It’s called ”The Return From Egypt”—you could look it up.

 

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