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The Easter Alien Pat Boone He was an alien, no question. Some might call him the "ultimate alien." He was originally from a far country, son of the King, and you might say he was seeking asylum, political and spiritual asylum, and was decidedly on a mission. Further, he was an "embedded" alien. Wondrously, he contrived to be born to a citizen, to a young Jewish woman, and though her husband was not his natural father, the boy was "legal." Born in the new country to a native girl, he was automatically – and legally – a citizen now himself. By all accounts, he was a model child. He obeyed his parents, was a good student, worked in his supposed dad's carpentry business, and "grew in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man," as one family friend put it later. For thirty years, he proved himself an ideal citizen in every respect. True, he kept in touch frequently with his real father, the King, though no one around him, his brothers and sisters, his parents or friends, knew about that. His mom may have suspected it, since she had once communicated directly with the King herself, and had willingly agreed to aid and abet the King's plan to "embed" his son in a safe and obscure, out-of-the-way, place where he could grow up and prepare for the secret mission they had conceived together. But whatever she suspected, she kept it to herself and "pondered it in her heart." The important part to remember here is: Though this young prince was originally an "alien," having entered his new country without papers, without Kingly documents that could have gained his entry and acceptance anywhere, he did it legally. He broke no law, and he happily conformed to all the statutes and requirements of his adoptive culture. That is, until he turned 30.
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About that time, he began to reveal who he really was and why he had entered the country. He began to employ powers granted him by his father the King – healing diseases, raising the dead, casting out demons, feeding multitudes miraculously, stilling the raging storms with a word, walking on water when he chose – and inviting any and all to become citizens of His kingdom! As he had become a citizen in their land, conforming to their customs and enjoying their privileges, he now was offering them full citizenship in His country as well, with infinitely greater privileges and benefits! This really rocked the establishment, to put it mildly, and the officials tried desperately to find some statute, some broken law, some pretext to stop him, to deport him, to send him back to wherever he had come from. There was none. He even said, fully aware of their frantic quest, "I did not come to destroy the law – but to fulfill it." And he expanded that when, on trial for his life, he said: "My kingdom is not of this world; it is a heavenly kingdom. I have commanded my disciples to render unto Caesar the things that are his, and unto God the things that He requires. There should be no conflict between the two." Still, the establishment found a way to get rid of him. On false testimony and purposely twisted versions of his own statements, he was declared guilty and sentenced to death! Not because he had broken any laws, but because he had rocked the establishment. He was a problem, and he had to be disposed of. He was cruelly, savagely, put to death. Eliminated. The "ultimate deportation." But the story doesn't end there. We'll come back to that in a moment. First, I want us to listen to what God Himself says about the "alien."
When Moses, having led two and a half million aliens through the Sinai desert for forty years, was about to die and to turn over leadership of the wandering Jews to Joshua, he addressed the nation in a stirring recap of all they had been through together. Included in that monumental address were these words, recorded in the 10th Chapter of Dueteronomy:
"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. He is your praise; He is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky." It's very clear. God loves the alien, wants us to identify with and care for the alien, to welcome them into our society, as historically we surely have. Almost all of us, excepting native American Indians, are from "alien" families. But it is not a one-way street. The nomadic Jews, when they were living as slaves in Egypt, had to obey every law; and when they were settled in Canaan, they were commanded to obey every law; and the aliens who managed to stay among them were also commanded to obey every law God had given to the Jews.
Through His prophet Samuel, God said that "rebellion – breaking and disregarding the law – is as the sin of witchcraft." (1st Samuel 15:23) It is not to be tolerated, and no society can long endure when it does not enforce its laws. And that brings us back to Jesus, the "Easter Alien." When He was "embedded" in a loving family in Nazareth, His boyhood home, He grew up obeying every law. Though He was a homeless migrant for three years, leading His disciples from town to town and warning those who thought they'd like to travel with Him that He "had no place to lay His head," He still demanded that His followers pay their taxes and obey every statute. Now He knew fully, from his observance and experience, that normal good people could never obey all the laws perfectly, and that eventually even the most conscientious would fail. He also knew that Moses' law provided for atonement each year, and a new beginning, a fresh slate.
But it was stressful, and limiting, and there was always the nagging possibility that something very important would be overlooked, bringing serious consequences. Moses said about his very own people, in that last address in Deuteronomy: "You are a stiff-necked people. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God." In some ways, it was a tough way to live. SO JESUS CAME BACK! He rose from the dead, defying His "deportation," having personally fulfilled all the laws and requirements, quashing all indictments and convictions and death sentences, having taken upon Himself every penalty (according to Isaiah 53), and having reinforced and underscored the eternal death sentence of the evil legalist/lawbreaker Satan, and all who would follow him. In His nail-scarred hands He offered any who would receive it a New Citizenship, in a Heavenly Kingdom, and a New Covenant with Guaranteed Benefits, in this life and the next! Hallelujah!! Still – and it's so important to remember this Easter, with immigration issues and strident demands pressing upon us – that the "ultimate Alien" Himself scrupulously obeyed every law and expects each of us to do the same.
Our government is bending over backward to give 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants among us the right to obtain citizenship legally, by registering and learning our language and obeying our laws. Now, for many of these immigrants to declare in huge public demonstrations "We love America!" and then defy its laws and resent being asked to go through the established process to become legal citizens is hollow. It's simply rebellion, and certainly not the answer to the complicated problems. The inescapable answer to this – and all our problems and concerns – is to follow the example of the "Easter Alien," the human personification of the Great King of All: To individually love the alien, to offer food and clothing, to welcome them the way we've been welcomed ourselves – through the fulfillment of law.
Editor's note:
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