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<\/a>You\u2019ve probably all seen Coexist bumper stickers of various kinds. They are often taken to signify that adherents of various spiritual paths or no faith at all should move beyond their differences, foster understanding, and get along.* Certainly, there is a need for us all to coexist, to get along and understand one another better, as the world gets smaller due to high-speed technology and travel, population growth and turbulent migration patterns, and increasing partisan hostilities and tribalism. So, coexistence and social cohesion are good things, just so long as they do not undermine important distinctives between various communities and traditions, including the value some faiths place on tenacious love. Can you imagine if coexistence were the fundamental feature of biblical religion? God would not have desired to remain in covenantal communion with his people when they sinned against the Lord. Nor would Jesus have ever come to earth at Christmas!<\/p>\n
To coexist and cultivate forms of social cohesion are good things. Tolerance is vitally important. But tolerance of differences does not go far enough. I am very thankful that John 3:16 does not<\/u><\/em> say, \u201cFor God so tolerated the world that he chose not to send his Son.\u201d I marvel at Christmas that John 3:16 does<\/u><\/em> read: \u201cFor\u00a0God so loved\u00a0the world,\u00a0that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not\u00a0perish but have eternal life\u201d (ESV). For whom did God give his Son? For us? And who were we when Jesus died for us? According to St. Paul, we were ungodly sinners and enemies of God:<\/p>\n For\u00a0while we were still weak, at the right time\u00a0Christ died for the ungodly.\u00a0For one will scarcely die for a righteous person\u2014though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die\u2014but\u00a0God shows his love for us in that\u00a0while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\u00a0Since, therefore,\u00a0we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from\u00a0the wrath of God.\u00a0For if\u00a0while we were enemies\u00a0we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by\u00a0his life.\u00a0More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received\u00a0reconciliation (Romans 5:6-11; ESV).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jesus calls on his followers to pray for their enemies and bless those who persecute them. We are not to love as the world at large loves, which only entails loving one\u2019s own kind. Jesus calls on us to love those not like us, and those who don\u2019t like us. Here\u2019s Jesus as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount:<\/p>\n \u201cYou have heard that it was said,\u00a0\u2018You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.\u2019\u00a0But I say to you,\u00a0Love your enemies and\u00a0pray for those who persecute you,\u00a0so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and\u00a0sends rain on the just and on the unjust.\u00a0For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?\u00a0And if you greet only your brothers,\u00a0what more are you doing than others? Do not even\u00a0the Gentiles do the same?\u00a0You therefore must be\u00a0perfect,\u00a0as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48; ESV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thank God that Jesus came to earth to model enemy love. There is no way we can do this without agape, which comes to us as Jesus is born and grows in our hearts through the Spirit at Christmas and beyond.<\/p>\n One of the most powerful reflections on enemy love at Christmas comes from the heart of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He spoke the following words in his Christmas sermon in 1967:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I\u2019ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens\u2019 councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: \u201cWe shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we\u2019ll still love you. But be assured that we\u2019ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.\u201d Martin Luther King, Jr., \u201cA Christmas Sermon on Peace,\u201d December 24, 1967<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dr. King returned hatred and indifference with tenacious love. He sought to wear people\u2019s hate down with long-suffering agape. He did not seek to get even, but rather make whole, pursuing freedom for his people in such a way that it involved sharing life in solidarity with all people, including former enemies. If Dr. King, as a persecuted ethnic minority can say this, pray this, and live this, surely should those who belong to the dominant culture. May we all cease seeking to dominate and be constrained and compelled by God\u2019s undying, enemy love.<\/p>\n Do we have the same heart as Jesus who came to earth to love God\u2019s enemies? Do we love our enemies and pray for God\u2019s mercies on our enemies, just as Jesus did on the cross? (Luke 23:34) Do we pray that not only would God free us from bondage to various forms of oppression, but also that God would win over our enemies and us in the process, so that we would experience a double victory? Do we do more than stick coexist bumper stickers on our cars? Do we place tenacious love sign posts over our hearts at Christmas and beyond?<\/p>\n _______________<\/p>\n *Moving beyond associations people make with various renditions of the symbol, refer here<\/a> for information on the organization that bears the \u201cCoexist\u201d name.<\/p>\n