Love Your Enemy
Enemy resistance on Guadalcanal ended when the last Japanese troops left the island on February 9, 1943, during a nighttime evacuation. A few days later Father Frederic Gehring accompanied a patrol to Cape Esperance, the sight of the last Japanese withdrawal. During their search for maps and documents the group was surprised by the appearance of four ragged, half-starved Japanese soldiers. Under the watchful eyes of the Americans, three of them raised their hands, submitting themselves to capture. The fourth collapsed on the beach.
Gehring moved to help the man up, but someone said, “Let him die there, Padre. Who needs him?” The chaplain had a different agenda:
I shook my head, bent over and picked him up. Then I carried him gingerly to the boat. Lieutenant Merson smiled thoughtfully at me. “For six months, the Japs have soaked this island in blood,” he said. “Not only did they kill so many of your boys, but they massacred missionaries, women, and harmless natives, and nearly massacred your little Patsy Li (an orphan girl rescued by the chaplain). Yet when one of their poor devils falls on his face in front of you, you pick him up lice and all and tote him like a baby. I salute you, Padre. You really do love your enemies!”197
We might expect this kind of tender mercy from a “man of God.” However, few of us have experienced the trauma of Guadalcanal. What we see in Chaplain Gehring surely is not of human origin. An attitude and action such as this flow from one source: the indwelling spirit of Jesus Christ. From this inexhaustible fountain we see mercy pour out of a man exposed to months of fear, despair, and anger. There has to be a divine origin for this kind of love.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
—Romans 12:21