Murree Christian School, Graduation 2013

Baccalaureate

It is a real privilege, and a delight, to have been asked by our graduating class to give this message. We are here to give thanks to God for them, to help consecrate their memories of their time here, and to send them out in Jesus’ name. Jesus asks; “To what shall I compare this generation??” So, today, to what should we compare this generation, this class of 2013? I finally settled on the image of Abraham and Isaac, Isaac, a student at MCS.

You see, your story at MCS starts not with you, but with your parent’s faith in coming to these lands. Never underestimate the cost of that obedience for your parents, to raise you here and to send you to boarding school. We sometimes wonder at Job, and at his insistence that he has been righteous. We need to remember his friends were demanding that his sufferings, including the loss of his money, health and even the deaths of his own children, were his own fault, whereas he insisted that he had been obeying God. That why he needed so desperately to be vindicated by God. And so too, for us today. I well remember a teacher at a Christian school in Jerusalem sharing how, when he told his church he was taking his family to Israel, was met by a member at the door who said; “I hope you have had your children measured for coffins”, and then walked away. Friends here have shared how when they first heard God’s call to Pakistan, close relatives said; “if you want to throw your own lives away that’s your business, but spare your children, don’t take them with you.” Speaking as a parent, placing our children in God’s hands can be one of the hardest things we are ever called to do, even as we know He loves and cares for them even more than we do. So how did Abraham do it? How did the father of the faithful give his only child to God? When Abraham is questioned by his companions about what he is doing, he says something amazing; “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” This is the first time the word worship is used in the Bible, not of singing songs in a church, but of placing your only child in God’s hands. As Hebrews 11 assures us, Abraham did not obey in despair, or in hopelessness, but rather it was by faith that when tested, he offered Isaac as a sacrifice, and received him back. God willing, your parents also placed you here as an act of faith, as an act of worship.

And what of you, missionary children, sent away to boarding school? You trusted your parents, you knew they loved you, yet it was so hard to be sent away. Those first months sometimes seemed more than you could bear. In a very real sense, you were Isaac, being sent to a place of sacrifice, for a vision you had not seen, for a voice only your parents had heard. So, how did Isaac feel about being sacrificed by his father for a voice he had not heard? Well, firstly, we know that Isaac obeyed his father. He trusted him. Not only that, but his father needed his help to do God’s will in this. It was Isaac who carried the wood. God is not stupid, he knows your parents have children, and if it is his will that they be here, then it is his perfect will that you also be here. You are not excess baggage, or collateral damage, rather you are here by the same calling God gave to your parents; “Here am I and the children God has given me, signs and wonders to the house of Israel”. We all affirm the necessity of prayer support to be here, yet how many parents realise that their best prayers are often their own children? When there was trouble up north last year, it was Havy and MinHa who were continually praying for them in junior high girls. And it is not only prayer; when the Sindh was flooded, Lizzy spent her holiday helping her parents care for its victims, just as many others here have helped in their parents work. So parents, let your children be part of your ministry here, share your prayer needs with them. God’s calling on your family includes them, they need to understand it and be part of it. Isaac asks questions of his father as they climb the mount, and Abraham doesn’t shut him out or tell him to be quiet, but answers in a way that centres on God, honours God and shares his trust in God. In the same way, you parents need to listen to your children’s concerns. Hear them and help them through them. Dont be angry if they have questions or needs. Hug them and share with them your faith in our loving heavenly father.

During your years at MCS there have been hard times for both you and your parents. You parents included and shared with your children what you were doing, you glorified God in your words and deeds, your children affirmed you and were so proud of you, yet still that moment came when you had to say goodbye and then drive away from them. Having done all things well, still you came to the place of sacrifice. Indeed, it was only because you had done well that you arrived at that place! Had you not done well, had you or your child just said I cant do this, lets go back to America, Korea or wherever, only then would you have avoided that place. Not all sorrow is wrong, Simeon tells Mary that a sword will pierce her heart also, a grief she could have avoided only by staying away from Golgotha, from Jesus. And even here, it was right and needed that you share even this with your children. They needed your tears at parting to tell them how precious they were to you. Because Isaac never was excess baggage or collateral damage. God says simply; “take your only son, whom you love”. He was God’s gift, and in him all God’s promises to Abraham rested. He was always needed and loved, and handing him to God was the hardest thing Abraham ever did. You are and always have been a vital part of your parents lives and ministry. Just by being here, safe happy and growing, you were carrying wood for your parents and helping them in God’s will for your family. As a direct result of Abraham’s trust, God blessed Abraham, Isaac and all his offspring, and that blessing and promise are the anchor of our souls to this day, for we likewise are children of Abraham. I am convinced that the blessings which have flowed to the wider mission work as a result of faithful parents and obedient children will only be truly known once we are in heaven. By faith you endured the separation for the sake of the kingdom.

How does the story end? God indeed provided, when his own dear son also carried wood on those very same hills. Through his own sacrifice he turned yours into a blessing. Isaac means “he will laugh,” and for us here, MCS is undeniably a place of much laughter, creativity, happiness and deep friendships. Most of our students, like our staff, have grown to love living at MCS. Its a great place! The extravagant farewells at the end of term, and rapturous reunions after ten days apart witness this. God did not call your family here to curse you, but because he loves you, and desires to bless you. Isaac did not grow up hating his father and resenting his father’s God, but rather, his father’s God became his God, and Jesus speaks of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is no man’s debtor, and your children have grown in their faith here. God has shown he can be trusted, that he is real. I was speaking with a year 12 class some years ago about how God draws people to himself, and a student shared how a man had a vision in Afghanistan and walked overland from there to his dad’s bookshop, and asked what must he do to be saved. Other students then shared similar stories, again of people they knew, who had lived in their houses. I thought how in the West, a really keen student might have said, “I read about some guy”, but here it was someone they knew personally, who had lived with them for months. God has indeed blessed these students, and they know the reality of him. Interestingly, the God of Abraham also becomes the Fear of Isaac. Isaac’s own son will tell Laban “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night." Isaac had learnt from an early age that God is truly some one to fear, but also, that he is on his side. Jacob tells Laban that it is the Fear of Isaac who has protected him. Isaac had personally experienced both the holiness and the mercy of God, had personally experienced God himself providing the sacrifice that was demanded. He understood the power and supremacy of God in a way few people have. He was indeed a living sacrifice. He loved and worshiped God and he also feared him. As the beavers tell Lucy, he is not a tame lion, but he is good. In Isaiah we read “and your heart shall fear, and be enlarged;” not fear and as a result shriveled or embittered, but fear and be enlarged. And the God whom you have obeyed in the hard things as well as the smooth has not embittered but enlarged these young hearts before us now.

Ezekiel 14 speaks of “sons and daughters who will be brought out of it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct and their actions, you will be consoled... ²³ You will be consoled when you see their conduct and their actions, for you will know that I have done nothing in it without cause, declares the Sovereign LORD." I mentioned earlier Job’s need for God to vindicate him. A very real part of God’s vindication of us are sitting in the front row today, and indeed, in all of the rows. When we look at these young people here, their conduct and their actions, we can affirm God’s goodness and blessings. He indeed has done all things well and we praise him for them. We are here today to thank him, and to give him all the glory. We would also affirm the wisdom and courage of their parents in bringing them here. You did not do wrong to obey God’s call and bring your children with you. Praise him who is worthy to be feared and trusted with even those who are most precious to us. This is true worship!

Turning to the simpler rhythms of our lives, MCS has been more than schooling and training for our graduates, it has been their childhood. For ten months a year, this is where they lived and grew up. Captain Torr and the clones in the Blue Crystal, Lizzy crying because Laney was going to be with the big kids in Junior high while she was stuck in elementary for another year (we have known Lizzy since she was this tall!!), their childhood joys and sorrows, memories and anecdotes, largely took place here. As they leave here on Thursday, they leave their childhood, and step out as adults into an adult world. And they will take from their time here both positives and negatives. We have already touched upon some of the positives, the incredible experience of the reality of God, knowing that he loves them, added to this, and contained within it, close supportive friends and teachers, teachers God personally called from the other side of the world to be a blessing to them and to their parent’s ministries. What about the negatives? Here I will not dwell on the small griefs and dramas of childhood, for as you graduate, these are already largely forgotten, which shows how little most of them really mattered anyway. No, the real negatives you might take away from here are in direct proportion to the blessings God has showered upon you here.

What do I mean by that? Well, as my year 11 and 12 Christian Studies students will tell you, God chose to have the descendants of Abraham become a nation, to have their childhood if you will, not at MCS, but in slavery in Egypt. This was not a punishment for sin. God meets with Jacob in Beersheba to confirm that this is indeed his will for them, that it was God’s choice for their childhood. Why would God want that?? Because while called to be a blessing to others, in that very calling, room for pride and arrogance can sneak in. “God called me, not you, therefore I must be better than you. I thank you Lord, that I am not like this tax collector.” This possibility was so serious that God was prepared to spend 400 years in grinding slavery, and to commemorate this every year thereafter during Passover, so that it might be curbed. We read in Proverbs of the 6 things that God hates, and the first is haughty eyes. We see the fruits of that childhood in the Law; be kind to the stranger for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt. Be kind to the widow and the orphan, you know in your bones what it is to be a slave and a stranger, let that knowledge express itself in compassion for others. Now, we don’t regret not making MCS a slave camp, although Uncle Harry and Uncle Hans do have some interesting ideas there, but as I said, the very blessings of your childhood can be a snare to you back in your home countries if you are not careful.  

You will have better stories - earthquakes, floods, Afghanistan, as we said, people coming to Jesus through dreams and visions. Someone starts sharing of God dealing with them this week, and you but in, “thats nothing, listen to my story of what happened in Pakistan!!” There will be a time to share, and also many times not to share, and that will be lonely.

Friendships – at MCS you have made some of the deepest and most intense friendships you will ever make. Roommates often become very close, so a close friend can be someone you wake up in the same room as, brush your teeth together, have breakfast with, go to most of the same classes with, have lunch and afternoon tea with, play together after school, have dinner with, study hall with and then go to sleep chatting to, until Aunti Kosek tells you to be quiet. On weekends likewise you do everything together, and so the months and years go by. You may feel intensely lonely for some time after you leave here. And even after that you may still think you have no close friends, for in the west, if you see someone once or twice a week, they may well consider you a close friend. Dont think you have no friends, rather realise that friendship is different. 

Laziness. You wont like this one, and it most certainly doesn’t apply to all of you, but Mark Dalton once shared how, on returning to America after growing up here, his non-Christian boss told him; “if I had known you were a missionary kid, I never would have hired you. They don’t know how to work, and they think the world owes them a living.” You haven’t had to do dishes, mow lawns or do a host of other chores common to kids back home, and every weekend special activities have been arranged for you that you take for granted, except to complain about the AC. This is something you will have to get over!

Spiritual pride and feelings of superiority are also real dangers you will confront. You have been raised in an unnaturally Godly environment, praise God!! Basically, every adult here would give up home, friends and family for the Gospel (just by being here they already have), and hopefully, every adult here is ready to die for Jesus. That is not and cannot and should not be the case for churches back home. It is also not the situation in the local Pakistani church, though yes, we wish and pray that it were! But we also want people who are just interested to feel welcome in our churches; we want Christians who are struggling with their faith to be included. Isaiah says of Jesus; A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; In Jeremiah he declares; See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. It is not just the strong and the sleek that God calls, but also the blind and the lame, and those who need special care. Such should find a home in our congregations. The weak and the lame are not cursed by God for being so, rather in grace he commits himself to helping them. Remember, weakness is not sin!! Paul writes to the strong and the weak in faith. He doesn’t tell the weak to shape up and be like those great strong in faith ones. Indeed, he has no word of censure for the weak, and only words of censure for the strong, whom he criticizes for not helping the weak.

Two of my own children, Nathan and Naomi went to an MK get together in Brisbane some time ago. Everyone sat around saying how great worship in Africa was, how great the church in China was, how shallow and materialistic and useless everyone in Australia was. The very blessings these MKs had experienced as children had become a source of pride, of haughty eyes as they looked down on those around them. What do we make of this? Firstly, lets be honest, its probably true. A lot of churches in the west are not what they should be. And that forces us to look again at why God called you here in the first place. Why has God has blessed you? So that you can bless others, bless and not curse. As Isaiah again says; Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear.” You think that you are more spiritual that the Christians back home? Then prove it through acts of servanthood, sacrificial giving, encouragement and love!! Use your years here to make you a better servant, not a bitter critic.

He has called you to strengthen and nurture, not to attack and dismiss. May your new church back home be able to say; “you know those new KM kids, all they do is encourage others, do the dirty jobs without being asked, you hardly know they are here, but they are such a blessing to us! They seem to have learned what it really is to be a servant, and to fear God.” Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." So don’t look down on the church back home, but rather ask for the grace to serve Jesus as you serve his body. And that grace is not condescension, it is the very grace you too have needed, when you were down, or missing home and needed a hug, a kind word, parents to just hold you close, because none of us are perfect, and we all need encouragement in times of weakness. Equally, even parents, teachers and house parents do need to be forgiven!

I began this talk with Jesus saying “to what shall I compare this generation?” The word generations in the Old Testament has a great message. You see, it can be spelled two ways, perfect (תּוֹלֵדוֹת), and imperfect/defective (תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת). Now in its first occurrence, in Genesis 2:4, “these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created”, the word is spelled complete, for everything God created was good. But from then on, after the fall, every time we read this word, it is defective; the generations of Adam (defective), of Noah (defective), Seth (defective), Abraham (defective), and yes, of Isaac, (defective), they are all defective. Until at last, we come to its final usage, in Ruth 4:18; “these are the generations of Perez”, and here it at last it is spelled complete. The rabbis said yes, this speaks of the son of Perez, the son of David. Here we see the messiah, who will restore to humanity everything which Adam lost. Speaking of us and Jesus, Paul writes; “as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”

You are indeed descendants of missionary parents, and graduates of MCS. But remember, all generations, even Abrahams and Isaacs, even your parents and MCS, like your friends and church back home, are defective. Build on the strengths you have received from your parents and from MCS, be aware of their dangers, and always remember that only in Jesus are you or any of us made perfect!!

Thank you.