All My Friends Are Leaving

This morning when I woke up, the world felt a little different.  As I sat eating my breakfast alone at Fort Zion, I suddenly felt like I was sitting at the table with the world rushing around me in warp speed.  I imagined my household brothers going about their days, walking through the hallway and kitchen, goofing around in the living room.  All the while, I continued to go about my day per usual feeling as though everything was suddenly moving much faster than I was capable.  It was as if I was living in a completely different world than them.  And honestly, it brought a lot of sorrow because I realized: All my friends are leaving.

Granted, most of you are just heading home for the summer and will be back in the fall.  But the group of friends I’ve run with for the past four years is approaching a new stage in life.  Today, is graduation day, which means the day has come for us to finally change course a little bit.  For some, you’ll be right back in the classroom in the fall.  Others are starting your careers.  Some will stay nearby.  Still others are moving further away.  Our paths have always looked a little different, but for at least a time in our lives, they've touched.  

The past four years have been marked by countless moments of joy, bliss, and laughter.  There has been generosity, service, and memories galore.  We’ve shared meals together, prayed together, and even played together.  We’ve had spontaneous parties because…well, “any excuse to party”, right? 

We joined a mission together and lived our lives according to one singular aim: to bring Jesus to a campus that desperately needs Him.  First, we were called to this life.  Then we began to live it.  But just living it wasn’t enough unless other people had that same opportunity.  So we invited others into that life.  It was trying and difficult at times.  Rejection was not uncommon.  Sometimes, we would sacrifice our time and get nothing in return.  But every life changed because of the “yes” someone gave was worth all the difficulty. And, ultimately, it was the least we could do for all the people who said “yes” before us so we would have the opportunity to lay down our lives, too.

I am personally grateful for all of you and even more grateful that God brought us all together for this time in our lives because, ultimately, we did not choose one another, but God chose us to lead, teach, and protect our way of life as friends.  We’ve faced difficulty and challenges together.  It was in the midst of difficulty, however, that we were able to forge a strong foundation and cultivate even richer, more authentic relationships with one another because those relationships were built not on friendships alone, but they were rooted in Someone greater than us.

We’ve lived life together and we’ve lived it well.  And at the center of it all has been love.  In a world marked by pride and selfishness, we’ve come to know a man named Jesus Christ, who is Love.  He showed us how to serve and how to pray.  He showed us what generosity looks like. He exhorted us to “spend and be spent for the salvation of souls” (2 Cor 12:15) and then showed us how to do that.  

As we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, I can’t help but seek parallels to this stage in our lives.  Jesus lived life well with his apostles.  In many senses, our lives have mirrored the lives they lived.  And what marked the pinnacle of Jesus’s life?  His death and resurrection.  He had to leave his apostles and he knew it.  But before he did, he exhorted them that it was better that he go (John 16:7).  Jesus didn’t say it would be okay that he go.  He said that it would be better for them that he would go because he needed to go in order to send the Holy Spirit to them.

Today marks the end of what has been an incredibly blessed season of life.  But today is also a new beginning for us all.  It is far better that we go our own way because people around the world still don’t know Jesus and we need disciples outside of just Ohio State.  The past four years have seemed at times like an eternity, but really they have only built a foundation for us to stand on for the rest of our lives.  We have encountered the Holy Spirit in a way that has prepared us for whatever trials we may face going forward.  We’ve also seen the rich fruit that comes from sharing our way of life with others.  I think we can all agree that we want others to share in that fruit as well.

I’d like to imagine what Jesus would say to us if he was to give us one more exhortation before our journeys part.  Then I realize, he already has:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Lastly, today is not a goodbye.  It’s an “I’ll see you later”.