By Mandi Hart, Op-ed contributor
“Out of Egypt, I will name My son …”
So promised God in a prophecy recorded within the e book of Hosea. Christians scrutinize this prophecy as fulfilled by Jesus Christ because the Holy Family fled to Egypt when He became an child, and He spent the first years of His lifestyles as a refugee within the land of the Pharaohs.
Yet Christians furthermore imagine that Jesus died and rose from the ineffective as the “first of many brothers”. His resurrection made it attainable for any individual who would imagine in Him and His name to faith to alter into fancy Him: a child of God.
Thus, God would undertake younger of us from every nation, language, tribe, and tongue. In Jesus, the family of God would be multiethnic and multilingual. From the a wide series of, God would pick up one: solidarity in vary, rooted within the identification of the a wide series of with the death of the One.
This solidarity became on singular and animated point out on February 15, 2015, on a seaside in Libya, as 21 men confronted death on legend of their identification with Jesus Christ. All however one were Coptic Christians, even supposing no longer all from the same map. No. 21 became Matthew from Ghana. His ethnic and linguistic heritage were particular from the assorted men, however those differences were transcended in Jesus.
Matthew became given the different to flee ISIS imprisonment and return home to his (earthly) family. However in Jesus, he had learned a brand contemporary family, a dazzling one, and he refused to give that up. Matthew selected to prevent with the 20 Coptic men who had been strangers because their God became his God, and thus they were his brothers.
These 21 men identified with Jesus in lifestyles and grew to alter into fancy Him in death. They were brutally beheaded on a seaside in Libya, one after the opposite, in hopes that as a minimum one would hand over his faith.
However their familial bonds held; nothing might possibly also snatch them out of the hand of the God Who made them brothers or separate them from that God’s fancy.
They were devoted to the tip because their God became devoted. Dilapidated ISIS contributors reported after the fact that “uncommon figures” appeared on the seaside with the 21. Figures carrying banners, swords, driving horses, some sporting shaded. These sights terrified ISIS however lent energy and encouragement to their captives, who died whispering prayers to the God Who died for them first.
It has been 10 years since that point out of plucky, unifying faith on the Libyan seaside. Matthew’s earthly family has yet to be identified, however in death, he remains united to his Coptic brothers. Matthew’s physique became enshrined with the assorted 20 in a church constructed in their honor — a church whose building became financed by the Egyptian government.
Of their deaths, the 21 drew collectively Egyptians of varying faiths to proclaim in solidarity that their brothers, their sons, would no longer be pawns within the fingers of terrorists. True days after ISIS released the now-irascible video of the beheadings, the Egypt government bombed ISIS strongholds in Libya. And after this vengeance became rendered, the federal government declared seven days of nationwide mourning.
Within the remaining weeks of their lives, the 21 exemplified the solidarity made attainable by Christ’s death. And in their deaths, the 21 introduced the living collectively to explain that such violence and hatred would no longer be tolerated, nor would it triumph. A decade has passed, yet the animated legend of the 21 continues to reverberate around the enviornment.
It continues to scenario the living with the demand: What would you be willing to die for? It brings collectively of us of goodwill to guard the significant accurate of all human beings to imagine and note their faith in peace and mutual admire.
Mandi Hart is a filmmaker and approved professional focusing on artistic recount building and manufacturing and intellectual property. She worked in documentary movie manufacturing earlier than acquiring her J.D. She is furthermore President of Cave Photos Publishing, an just publisher of spiritually resonant comic books and graphic novels. Mandi is a screenwriter and revealed creator of numerous articles bearing on movie financing and copyright security within the age of social media.
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