Graduation?
Last Thursday I attended the graduation at Hudson County Community College, where I serve as an English professor. It was a joy to see some of my recent students graduate, and two of the young adults from our church also walked across the stage to receive their well-earned diplomas. I thought about the obstacles many of my students had to overcome to make it to graduation: financial difficulties, young children or pregnancy, jobs that conflict with school, mental health issues, and the list goes on. Many of our students are the first in their families to attend college, and many speak English as a second language.
As I pondered graduation, I thought about the Christian life. I don’t think there is an analogous graduation in the Christian life. There is no point at which we can say we have learned all the relevant material and we are done learning. The Christian life is a continual process of learning who God is, what Christ has done for us, and what He wants us to do for Him. This process has a different name. It’s not graduation, but sanctification. The Christian life is a process of growing into the image of Christ, becoming godly, forsaking sin, and serving Jesus. We also have obstacles along the way, which we are instructed to “lay aside” so we can “run with endurance” this Christian walk.
Hebrews 12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
If there is a graduation in the Christian life, it comes at the end of our lives. We ‘graduate’ from this life, to the life we were created for, in heaven with Jesus.
Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
So true, we don’t graduate this side of heaven. One day we will though, and I am looking forward to the day.