Lyuba Yatskiv

American Christians who glibly use dehumanizing terms like "illegal aliens" whenever the contentious issue of immigration comes up need to go back to their Bibles and give a closer read to the story of the Flight into Egypt in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the Baby Jesus and flee to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod. For me, Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child in flight are archtypical representatives of myriads of displaced people throughout human history who sought safe havens and a better life in foreign lands. Few artists have depicted the story in so dramatic a way in such little space as Ukrainian Greek Catholic Icon-maker Lyuba Yatskiv has done here. We see the Holy Family, seemingly, impelled outward along two widening diagonal lines inscribed in Cyrillic script with the angel's message to Joseph in Matthew 2:13 and the lament of a mother grieving for her son slain in the Slaughter of the Innocents in a passage quoting Jeremiah in Matthew 2:18. The angel who hovers above, the mourning mother amid dead bodies below, and the Holy Family in the middle come together in a ballet of expressive, elongated hand and finger gestures. As Mary bends to the right, the childless Rachel leans to the left. In the most startling departure from traditional depictions of the Flight into Egypt, the infant Christ commands our attention with his authoritative gaze, as if ready to impart words of wisdom to his parents and to us about the unfolding of the divine plan for redemption of which this moment is an integral part. If so-called believers have no place in their world view for illegal aliens, they should ask themselves what might have happened in times past if Egypt had closed its doors to asylum-seekers and deported undocumented refugees? Have a heart, folks, and welcome the strangers among us for, as the Book of Hebrews puts in,  you may be "entertaining angels, unawares."  (John Kohan)