Talk 4:  Looking back to go forward….

Peter Pan is a fictional character, created by Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie.  A free-spirited and mischievous boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood on the mythical island of Neverland, as the Leader of the Lost Boys.  He is an exaggerated stereotype of a free-spirit, self-centred child, being too young to be burdened with the effects of education or to have an appreciation of moral responsibility.  Time makes little difference to him.  When you never grow up, life is nothing but fun, whimsy and adventure.  Walt Disney said of him, “He is twelve years old because he refuses to grow up beyond that comfortable age.” [1]

With the loss of authority in human institutions and the rise of the autonomous individual, we have seen the disregard for wisdom passed on from one generation to the next.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman philosopher and orator wrote, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain always a child.  For what is the worth of life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” [2]

Moses, the leader of God’s people, spoke to inspire and remind the Israelites of their covenant relationship with Yahweh and their calling to worship and love him with their whole being.  In the future, when they entered the Promise Land and the children asked, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” (Deuteronomy 6: 20) [3] which is code for why do we live this way?, the adults were to respond by telling them the Exodus story. This story is of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the gift of the promised land where they could flourish in their new life.  In this way, children were instructed to live according to their identity which God had graciously bestowed upon them.  Wisdom was about loving God and learning to live God’s way through the practice of truth embodied in the life of the community. (Deuteronomy 6: 7- 9). It was about being faithful to God expressed in obedience to His commandments in the midst of the challenges of sin and idolatry (Deuteronomy 6: 13–16) that surrounded them.  They were to live genuine human lives that would be a light to the nations and reflect the reality of the living God. This was to be in stark contrast to the idolatrous nations surrounding them.

Christ is our Exodus, but in western culture Christians sometimes have lost an appreciation of the whole Biblical story, whose climax and meaning is found in Christ as well as the past two thousand years of church history.  Os Guinness reminds us that this means we and our children are “condemned to live Peter Pan lives in a never-never land of the present, with little knowledge of the past (or much care for the future) to inspire their heroism, to season their wisdom and to protect their steps from the pitfalls into which previous generations have fallen.” [4]

But the fast life, of instant information about everything as it happens, has shifted our thinking to the ‘up-to-date’, and the rapid pace of change leaps us into the future so the wisdom of the past now seems out-dated.  History is often seen as irrelevant.

On the other hand, paradoxically, people are yearning to know their past, where they come from and where they belong.  Ancestry.com is one of the most frequented sites on the internet.  The Scriptures and history demonstrate that “the church always goes forward best by going back first.” [5]

As Christian teachers, we are called to serve God’s purpose in our generation – knowing our heritage that we may understand our present and move courageously into the future.  We go back to an historical person who is alive and has been at work in the lives of those both past and present, to bring new life to His creation. Our faith and our personal lives – all that we are, think and do, are to reflect the way of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and the truth and wisdom of God’s Kingdom, as revealed in His Word.

God the Son came, the ultimate human being, who in His person, was the embodiment of the Creator’s love.  For He fulfilled God’s promise that He would come and live with those He created.  The self-giving love that Jesus demonstrated and lavished on the poor, the sick, the sinful and the dying is what it looks like when the Creator “pitches His tent” in our midst.  The Cross demonstrates that love is the most powerful thing, for it takes the worst that humans can do, absorbs it and defeats it.  Christ’s resurrection says yes to new creation and “with it, to the love that all humans know in their bones is central to what it means to be human.” [6]  As we approach this Christmas season with our students, may we tell them the greatest love story of all time and stories of those who through time, have demonstrated such love. We can involve our students in acts of service that reflect the self-giving love of Jesus to others, demonstrating what it means to live out a better story,

The desire to reveal Jesus is deep in the heart of many Christian teachers around the globe.  May our hearts be deeply committed towards nurturing our students to live genuine human lives of meaning, purpose and love, now and into the future.  For they will only know what it means to truly flourish when they draw near to the One whose image they are to bear.  At the end of the school year, may we be inspired to continue to go deeper with Christ and continue to share this profound purpose into the future.

“Here we stand. Unashamed and assured in our own faith, we reach out to people of all other faiths with love, hope, and humility. With God’s help, we stand ready with you to face the challenges of our time and to work together for a greater human flourishing.”[7]

“Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Ephesians 1: 3

 

Grace and Peace
The TEC Team

 

[1] https: Disney.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_Pan_

[2] https:quotepark.com/quotes/1286666-marcus-tullius-cicero

[3] NIV

[4] OS  Guinness, Renaissance – The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times, (Downers Grove: InterVasity Press, 2014), 121.

[5] Ibid  133

[6] Nicholas Tom Wright, Broken Signposts – How Christianity makes sense of the World, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2020), 55.

[7] Os Guinness, Renaissance-The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times, (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 179