What would you be willing to die for?

“Out of Egypt, I will call My son …”

So promised God in a prophecy recorded in the book of Hosea. Christians see this prophecy as fulfilled by Jesus Christ because the Holy Family fled to Egypt when He was an infant, and He spent the first years of His life as a refugee in the land of the Pharaohs.

Yet Christians also believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead as the “first of many brothers”. His resurrection made it possible for anyone who would believe in Him and His call to faith to become like Him: a child of God.

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Thus, God would adopt children from every nation, language, tribe, and tongue. In Jesus, the family of God would be multiethnic and multilingual. From the many, God would create one: unity in diversity, rooted in the identification of the many with the death of the One.

This unity was on singular and inspiring display on February 15, 2015, on a beach in Libya, as 21 men faced death because of their identification with Jesus Christ. All but one were Coptic Christians, though not all from the same place. No. 21 was Matthew from Ghana. His ethnic and linguistic heritage were distinct from the other men, but those differences were transcended in Jesus.

Matthew was given the opportunity to escape ISIS imprisonment and return home to his (earthly) family. But in Jesus, he had found a new family, a heavenly one, and he refused to give that up. Matthew chose to stay with the 20 Coptic men who had been strangers because their God was his God, and thus they were his brothers.

These 21 men identified with Jesus in life and became like Him in death. They were brutally beheaded on a beach in Libya, one by one, in hopes that at least one would renounce his faith.

But their familial bonds held; nothing could snatch them out of the hand of the God Who made them brothers or separate them from that God’s love.

They were faithful to the end because their God was faithful. Former ISIS members reported after the fact that “strange figures” appeared on the beach with the 21. Figures carrying banners, swords, riding horses, some wearing black. These sights terrified ISIS but lent strength and encouragement to their captives, who died whispering prayers to the God Who died for them first.

It has been 10 years since that display of courageous, unifying faith on the Libyan beach. Matthew’s earthly family has yet to be identified, but in death, he remains united to his Coptic brothers. Matthew’s body was enshrined with the other 20 in a church built in their honor — a church whose construction was financed by the Egyptian government.

In their deaths, the 21 drew together Egyptians of varying faiths to proclaim in unity that their brothers, their sons, would not be pawns in the hands of terrorists. Just days after ISIS released the now-infamous video of the beheadings, the Egypt government bombed ISIS strongholds in Libya. And after this vengeance was rendered, the government declared seven days of national mourning.

In the last weeks of their lives, the 21 exemplified the unity made possible by Christ’s death. And in their deaths, the 21 brought the living together to declare that such violence and hatred would not be tolerated, nor would it triumph. A decade has passed, yet the inspiring story of the 21 continues to reverberate around the world.

It continues to challenge the living with the question: What would you be willing to die for? It brings together people of goodwill to protect the fundamental right of all human beings to believe and practice their religion in peace and mutual respect.