The Ultimate Graduation

Springtime holds so much promise and delightful expectations when leaves start to come in on trees, and plants and flowers bloom after a dormant winter. After the bursting forth of creation, the weather warms up giving us a glimpse of summer. That’s when students everywhere look forward to the end of the school year, and Seniors in high schools look forward to graduating.

Most of us have attended at least one graduation at one time or another. Seats are limited so we usually don’t attend for the sake of attending. We attend because someone dear to us is graduating, like our children, grandchildren, or someone very special in our lives for whom we are excited over their hard work, endurance, and accomplishment.

Many graduations are conducted in similar fashion. Family and friends find their seats and wait for the program to begin. Then, the graduates march in to take their seats. In a crowd of graduates, whether it’s 500 or 20,000, we look for our loved ones, trying our hardest to spot where they are. We are proud of them for this special day. The speaker of the event delivers a speech, and we tune in to the message if it's really interesting. But what we anxiously wait for is the moment our loved one’s name is called. As we cheer, our hearts burst with happiness for them. We are proud of them because we know they persevered through a lot of hard work.

I have attended a handful of graduations, and each time, I cannot help but think about my life’s ultimate graduation, when the sun sets on my life, and I enter Heaven. With my finite mind, I wonder if it might be a little bit similar to graduation. (Maybe?) I think about those who have gone before me who will be in the crowd looking for me, waiting for my name to be called. And then I think about The Speaker. It will not be someone to deliver an inspirational speech, but it will be the Lord God Himself, my Creator, who knows me because He made me. He would be telling everyone about my life. Hopefully, it will be about how I have loved people, how I have lived my life for Jesus, how I have obeyed, and done what He had asked me to do. Instead of receiving a handshake and a piece of paper like in an earthly graduation, I look forward to hearing Him say, “… Well done, good and faithful servant!...” Matthew 25:21 NIV