May 15, 2024
“Special Sunday Season” continues! This coming Sunday we celebrate our Sunday School program, the ancient Christian holiday of Pentecost, and the achievements of our graduates. You’ll learn more about them on the first page of this issue of The Messenger.
Pentecost proclaims the birthday of the Christian Church, which took place when the Holy Spirit inspired that small group of Jesus’ followers to leave their rented rooms and tell the Good News in the streets of Jerusalem. That day God’s Spirit transformed them from grateful but private people into exultant and public people. I can’t call it a graduation, no, because for those disciples-become-apostles it was not an ending so much as a beginning. It was the first day of their new lives, not the last day of the old ones.
Our graduates rejoice in what they’ve accomplished, and well they should. Learning is hard work, easily shirked, sometimes discounted. They have done what’s been asked of them, and knowing them as I do, they’ve done even more. We can all be proud of their successes.
Like those Christian at Pentecost, their graduation is not just an end. It is also a beginning. Two of them plan to continue their educations next fall, and the third is beginning his chosen career. All of them will learn new things, do new things, experience new things. All of them will share the blessings God has given with those they encounter.
Congratulations, graduates! You’ve done much and you’ve done well!
Congratulations, graduates! May the Holy Spirit bless you as you live as Pentecost people.
In peace,
Pastor Eric
Photo of an ‘amakihi in flight by Eric Anderson.
