The image is jarring.

A California congregation’s display depicting the Holy Family in cages, separated at the border in protest to the U.S. immigration policy, is sparking controversy.

The focus of the protest is the Trump Administration policy that ended last year that separated children from families who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

The church hopes to show people “How they may have been treated if captured at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Karen Clark Ristine, the senior minister at Claremont United Methodist Church asked on Facebook, “What would happen if the family sought refuge in America today?”

She then writes that Jesus’ family fled Israel for Egypt soon after his birth to escape King Herod’s coming terror.

“In a time in our country when refugee families seek asylum at our borders and are unwillingly separated from one another, we consider the most well-known refugee family in the world. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Holy Family,” Ristine said.

She followed up by saying, “Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years.”

Ristine said she was “stirred to tears” by the nativity which had been in the planning stages since she first arrived at the congregation in July.

It wasn’t long before Ristine’s post went viral. The post has been shared over 24,000 times.

While the Holy Family is separated outside of the church, they are reunited in another traditional nativity inside the church where church members and guests can see the family reunited.

Reactions to the nativity display have been mixed. While some people believe that it is a powerful statement of the plight of refugees and asylum seekers, others are not happy seeing the nativity turning into a political statement.