Even though you are going into your future, the future really is not your own. It belongs to the God who wonderfully made you. As you’ve made the journey to this Worship Center, I pray you, like Oscar Romero, will reflect, not only at the end or near the end of what I hope will be a long and fruitful life, but each day of your journey. I hope you are reflecting now. I hope you’ll reflect before you go to bed tonight. I hope you’ll be able to say at the end of every day for the rest of your life that, “I sought to make a difference in this world, God’s world, a world that He loves so much.”
My dear younger sisters and brothers, you were in the Fifth Grade when I became your pastor. Some of you I baptized. With some of you I went on missional journeys and participated in various functions. I’ve watched you play football and baseball or cheerlead. I watched you in the Band. I certainly have watched you here at Tabernacle week-after-week. I have walked with you through the sorrow of one of life’s darkest valley, the valley of death’s shadow, as I conducted the funeral of a friend or a parent or grandparent. Maybe I was just there with you. Oh, you are so wonderfully made for the journey to all those places you’ll go and I’m looking forward to hearing about your travels in the years to come.
Advertisement
Go and follow the ways of your hearts. First and foremost always worship, as the Eleven did, the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who is risen indeed, as
Matthew 28 indicates. And as you journey, even in this very moment, you might just hear Jesus, deep down in your heart of hearts, affirming, blessing, and exhorting you with words quite similar to those of one of my favorite theologians, a dude named Seuss, who once said…
Congratulations! Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And
YOU ARE the one who’ll decide where to go.
You really are off to Great Places! Today is your day. No. Today is the Lord’s Day. He has given each of you a mountain and it really is waiting. So, on this Lord’s Day, go ahead …
get on your way!And as you get on your way, don’t ever forget that you have been wonderfully made in the likeness and image of the Creator God of the Universe who, in the person of Jesus Christ, is with you always as you make the wonderful journey to all those places you will go – even if it is just across the street. Thanks be to God! In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let it be so. Let it be so.
[i] Gerald L. Sittser, Water From a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsityPress, 2007.
[ii] Thanks to my friend, Philip Wise, for Romero’s words.