"Do not oppress an
alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens,
because you were aliens in Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9 (NIV)
because you were aliens in Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9 (NIV)
Last
week President Obama issued an executive order to allow 5 million illegal
immigrants to live without the pressure of deportation for up to three years
without the promise of citizenship. Citing
the above scripture and former President Bush, the President said,
"Scripture
tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a
stranger—we were strangers once, too," said Obama. "My fellow
Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers
once, too."
That
seems to me to be exactly right.
It
has been said that James Madison would have rolled over in his grave at the
brashness of this executive order which breaches the fundamental principles of
the constitution of which Madison is the primary author (he wrote it based on
the Christian principle that humans are sinners and the three branches of
government exist so that no one branch can overstep)
I’m
not so sure, however, that Madison would be rolling over in his grave.
Why? Because behind the desire to ensure that government does not become
a dictatorship is the desire to protect people from injustice.
Whether our President has overstepped his authority or not, is it not
true that the Christian claim is that everyone who finds his or her way into
God’s Kingdom has done so without merit?
Is it not true that I, a sinner, who spends so much of his energies on
grasping at ways to serve myself, have nevertheless been invited into God’s
kingdom by his sacrifice for me? Is
it not true that while “yet a sinner’ (Romans 5:8) God in Christ paid the
highest price to adopt me, an undeserving “alien” so I that I could have
full rights as God’s child (Romans 8:14-17) and citizenship “in his new
country” (Ephesians 2:19 TLB). Is
it not also true that it is by pure Grace that I am a citizen of this country?
I
have always been so moved by the incredible poem that is carved into our statue
of Liberty.
"Give
me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Perhaps
you are wondering how this “amnesty” order is fair to those who have come to
America legally. Perhaps you
are wondering how fair it is to Americans who are seeking employment only to
find the doors shut because an illegal has his job.
Perhaps you cannot make the leap from being adopted by God into His
Kingdom by Grace translates into “amnesty’ for those south of the border.
Tune in tomorrow for part two.
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