The Myth of Graduation

Yesterday, during our worship service, we recognized and honored our graduates. Students who had completed high school and college were congratulated for their achievement. When we think about graduation, we quickly think about being finished. We have completed our studies.  We are done. But what we all know deep down is that we’re not really done at all. We’ve finished one thing, but will begin the next. Even the term “graduate” does not mean completion. It means advancing to the next level.  

As we go through the middle and later years of our lives, we discover that we are never finished.  One end is a new beginning. Retirement is the entrance to a new way of being and growing.  Learning one set of things simply makes future learning possible. Even if we think of death as the ultimate graduation, we will have eternity to continue learning about God and his new creation. Our graduates should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. But in life and even for eternity, we are never done. We are always graduating (but never graduated).