there are certain days throughout the year i particularly look forward to: any sunny day in Lima, my birthday, christmas, the first day of a vacation at the beach when i take my watch off and begin to forget what time it is….there are others. but this …THIS is not one of those days. not because it is not an honor to be asked to address these guys one final time…it’s the ‘final’ part that’s the problem…and this time is more final than ever before. i’ve seen people facing “final” times like this and have heard them promise themselves that they will not cry. i can make no such promise. what i have to say here is not for you, but you are invited to eavesdrop for the next few moments.
to the kids:
now to you, who are vitamins to my soul,
this month you will hear graduation speeches encouraging you and giving you advice for success as you go out to take on the world. well, this cannot be a 20 minute commencement address for 2 reasons: for one, we don’t have the time, and besides, i've already had the unparallelled privilege of encouraging you and giving you advice almost every week for anywhere between 1 and 4 years depending on just how long you've been subjecting yourself to the youth group. and frankly i have every confidence that all the material for success – in its truest sense – stands here before me today.
so much i still wanted to say to you: about suffering, and accountability, about the world that will come rushing in on you with a ferocity so subtle that it would leave your head spinning if you could but detect it…
a dozen other things to hopefully help further ground you in the faith you take from here. i don’t really know what words have planted themselves in your souls as a result of our times together. i’d actually like to know, and was going to ask last nite, but with the beach thing and chocolate and t-shirts, i just didn’t have it in me to organize a group discussion as well….write me some day and let me know. regardless, it’s now the job of others to fill in the holes i’ve left, as well as the holes i may have created…and there are some…probably many more than i would have the strength to acknowledge. for any and all wounds, my deepest apologies.
so what will be my parting shot? ultimately, the best thing i can do now is to remind you of what i’ve already told you on numerous occasions: remember who you are…and i’m not talking about the fact that each of you is delightfully weird…and some of you are more…delightful…than others.
so who are you? besides being:
- jobs
- martha
- billy
- kara
- ben
- andrew
- lucas
- saudi
- liz
whoever and whatever else you may think you are, remember this first:
that because you trust in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, you are forgiven… acquitted of all crimes against God. you are released … free to go.
But not merely forgiven; you are innocent. He has declared you righteous and holy, blameless in his sight…not on your merits, but on his, because he embraced the death that was rightfully yours and gave you the life that was rightfully his.
you are now sons and daughters of the most high God, the King of Kings. you are royalty with unspeakable privilege.
you are his workmanship, his poem: living masterpieces in the making…do not forget that
you are his delight, the intentional objects of his good pleasure and will.
this and much much more. so whatever you do … or are tempted to do, remember who you really are.
so hear me now, you who are salt of the earth and light of the world, you recipients of his lavish and incomprehensible grace.
what is my hope for you? well, the best of all good things of course, but not in the guise you may think…
i hope that in your life God makes you uncomfortable ….and thru that shows you that your only real comfort is in him
that he will stretch you, even to the point of breaking, ….so that you will learn that he is the only one that holds you together
that he will bring you to the end of your resources, ….so that you will see that in and of yourselves you can do nothing; and that he alone is your truest treasure
in this toxically egocentric age when the vast majority around you will be zealously devoted to the religion of self-worship and self-indulgence, i hope that he takes you increasingly out of yourselves, and then invades you and possesses each one of you in the fullest sense of the word, so that he himself may walk freely among your peers cleverly disguised as you.
i'll be happy to take partial credit for any of these difficulties that come your way, but do not forget that if they do, it's probably mostly your own fault…if indeed you ever prayed – however glibly – that God would help you to get to know him better. He will take that prayer seriously and the answer may be other than what you expect. my hope is that thru it all, you remember that his grace and love for you is so vast that it will take him an entire eternity to show it all to you.
i will indeed miss you. … i won’t particularly miss the mess you make in our home on saturday nites, but i will most certainly miss you.
this is it. so now, as you go, remain firmly and confidently in his mighty, gracious, wise, ever-loving, unrelenting and unbreakable grip. ladies and gentlemen, my friends, light of the world … salt of the earth…it's been a privilege.
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