It is the time of the year when we celebrate graduations, marriages and ordinations as our children, friends and associates draw to the end of one phase of their journey and move on to the challenge of a new beginning. It is a time of both sadness and joy; surrendering the comfort of the old to the unknown of the new, but the old must die to give birth to the new.
As we reflect upon our journey to God we see it is a series of endings and beginnings, of deaths and resurrections. As Christians we celebrate death and resurrection, not only as we commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, but in the events of our Christian life, a series of endings and new beginnings from birth to death.
They are mileposts on our journey to God. That journey begins with our being thrust into the world from the warmth and protection of our mother’s womb. The carefree and playful time of early childhood abruptly dies when we are marched off to the new beginnings of school; our world changes.
And so it goes. We die to childhood and schooldays and are reborn as adults. The freedom of the single life ends with the responsibility and joys of marriage. The world changes dramatically with parenthood. Endings and new beginnings; empty nest, retirement and our final journey; deaths and resurrections.
Jesus puts it this way “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.” John 12:24.
We congratulate our graduates our brides and grooms and our ordinands and bless them as they greet the future in faith and in hope on their journey to God
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