The Word of God Powerful in Death

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 08:16:44 -0500

In 1998, ten statues of 20th century Christian martyrs were installed in niches above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London, vacant since the west front of the abbey was completed more than 500 years ago.

Several of the names of those honored in this way are known throughout the world: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Oscar Romero. Others are less familiar.

One of these statues must be of special interest to us. It is that of a young Pakistani woman, Esther John, described as a “Presbyterian evangelist.” Esther was an Associate Reformed Presbyterian. It is an altogether striking testimony to the great missionary work of our small denomination that one of our own people should be remembered in this remarkable way.

Born Qamar Zia on Oct.14, 1929, in Madras, a city in southern India, Esther John was one of seven children. For several years she attended a government school, but her father’s ill health made it impossible for her to remain there. After a while she was sent to a mission school, and in that new setting her life took a startlingly new direction.

A New Life
“In this school,” she later wrote, “I began to study the Bible. Two days in the week we studied the Old Testament and two days the New Testament. One day in the week we did memory work, learning passages from the Bible and many songs. At first I did not study with zeal but rather indifferently. I had heard the Christians called blasphemers, and I did not like even to touch their book.

“One day we were studying the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, memorizing some parts of it which was very hard for me. It was while studying this chapter that God, by his grace, showed me that there was life and power in this Book. Then I began to realize that Jesus is alive forever.

“Through Isaiah 53, the first verse, he was saying to me with great sadness, ‘Who hath believed our report and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ Now I knew that I believed it and that his Son had been revealed to me. I knew that this was the true way.”

It is impossible here to recount in detail the events of the years that followed. Upon partition in 1947, her family, along with many other Muslims, moved to the Karachi in what had become Pakistan. In the end it proved necessary to leave the home and family she loved, and as Esther John (her new Christian name), she soon joined the community of Associate Reformed Presbyterians in Sahiwal.

A New Home
Dorothy Dagenhart, Superintendent of Nurses, gave her the close friendship and guidance she needed. There she was baptized and became a member of the church. In the spring of 1959, Dr. and Mrs. Bonner Dale White invited her to live with them in Chichawatni, 30 miles from Sahiwal, where she and Janet White witnessed to women and children in the surrounding villages and countryside.

The end of her pilgrimage came on Feb. 2, 1960, just 50 years ago. It was the occasion for the monthly overnight gathering of pastors and evangelists. Janet White must be permitted to describe the circumstances: “Nearly all,” she wrote, “would come on bicycles, some from long distances.

“Rice, meat, and spices must be measured out to be cooked in the big pot in the back yard. The red quilts and blankets, packed away in drums, must be counted out for bedding down the guests in the outdoor guest house. While I was busy with these preparations, I could hear Esther stirring about in her room and singing snatches of songs she loved, ‘Leave off all other ties, Jesus is calling...’

“It would seem that Esther was never better protected nor more surrounded by those who loved and respected her. But an enemy chose that night of all nights to strike down her life.

“We found her the next morning murdered in her own bed, struck twice on the head with some heavy sharp instrument. So vicious were the blows, she probably never knew she was hurt but woke up in an instant in the glory of Heaven.

“The horror of the next days was interrupted only by the hours it took to lay her body away very beautifully in the Christian cemetery in Montgomery (now Sahiwal). In the outdoor service, Muslims as well as Christians heard the victorious words, ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’

She was born a child of Ishmael, by faith she had become a child of Isaac. Her dust was to mingle with the dust of many other Pakistani children of Promise.”

As I have remembered Esther John, Reginald Heber’s great hymn “The Son of God Goes
Forth to War” has been much in my mind, especially the final stanza.

A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Saviour’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed;
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven,
Through peril, toil, and pain:
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train.

Note: I am grateful to Scott Mitchell, who chairs the Erskine College and Theological Seminary board of trustees, for calling my attention to the life of Esther John and the 50th anniversary of her martyrdom. Copies of Esther: Story of a Pakistani Girl, by Janet Ballantyne White, are available from World Witness.

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The Word of God Powerful in Death