May 22, 2016 / Graduation Sunday

This morning we will be honoring our graduates.  In less than two weeks, Thursday, June 2, PACE will celebrate and honor students who are going from Kindergarten to First Grade at 11:00 AM; from Middle School to High School at 2:00 PM; and from High School to College, and then on to Life at 5:00 PM!  Please join us if you are able to do so.  The Graduation Season reminds that our Life is often characterized as a journey. Theologian Alister McGrath states,
 
“The image of [a] journey reminds us that we are going somewhere…[and] traveling does more than lead us to the goal of our journeying.  A journey is itself a process that enables us to grow and develop as we press on to our goal.”                                                                             ~Alister McGrath

 
The Bible speaks of our life and our Christian experience as a journey, even more accurately as a “WALK”: The Walk of Faith.  In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul is speaking about the frailty of our Earthly Dwelling and the Fullness of our Heavenly Hope; and our ultimate accountability to God.  In the midst of these very precious passages is a simple, yet powerful small verse of Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:7.
 
2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV - For we walk by faith, not by sight.
 
This is more than a Biblical colloquialism.  It is a powerful statement of Biblical TRUTH.  In the natural, one only has to stumble around in the middle of the night to realize that walking by sight is not only advantageous, but it is quite necessary to the sparing of one’s toes from surprisingly vigorous pain. J Nevertheless, the Apostle says…
 
2 Corinthians 5:7 VOICE - The path we walk is charted by faith, not by what we see with our eyes.
 
This imagery is powerful because it instills within us a counterintuitive truth: that in order to move forward, we must utilize senses and skills that are beyond the scope of our natural capacity.  We must engage the Supernatural God who is already dwelling not just at the next step, the next turn, or over the next hill…but He already knows the journey’s end and dwells with us at its culmination.
 
This gives all of us, but especially our graduates, an understanding that we are traveling both “FROM…and TO.”  We are leaving some things, some places, and even some people; and moving forward toward somewhere new, and in this process, we ourselves are changing, learning, growing, and advancing.