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I admit it. I have commencement on my mind. This coming Friday, my youngest child/adult, Maryneal is graduating from the Terry College of Business at UGA. As her proud family, we will be attending two commencement services to celebrate the beginning of the rest of her life.
Yesterday our confirmation class joined the membership of JCPC. This is another commencement. Of course, the month of May could be renamed Commencement due to all the graduation ceremonies held during this month.
The word commencement has a wide array of meaning. Webster's dictionary notes these synonyms; birth, alpha, beginning, dawn, day one, get-go, start, threshold, kick off, launch, and morning to name a few.
Whenever we commence, it's off into an unknown future which holds both promise and uncertainties. When the Apostle Paul wrote about the power of resurrection he was speaking of God's new commencement; a new age was ushered in where the old is past, and God has made new.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
-2 Corinthians 5: 16-21
My prayer is that our resurrection faith will embrace all who are in the process of commencement and that the new creation ushered in through our Risen Lord will be their launching pad.
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