 This past Sunday, our churches celebrated the Feast of Pentecost. As I'm sure each one of you could tell us, the word Pentecost was used in the Septuagint to refer to the Festival of Weeks, the 50-day harvest festival that followed the Passover celebration. By the first century, BCE Pentecost was observed as a time of covenant renewal, with a special emphasis on Yahweh's giving of the law. God's gift of bountiful earth was recognized as being intertwined with God's gift of gracious instruction. For early Christians, the Passover was still the central feast day, but it was now, of course, Jesus who was regarded as the slain lamb, whose blood secures freedom from divine judgment and liberation from earthly oppressions. Pentecost was now that period of highest rejoicing following the Passover. Early Christians were instructed not even to kneel during Pentecost worship and to avoid everyday business activities if they involved deferential postures. As Tertullian put it, somewhat paradoxically perhaps, Pentecost was to be distinguished by a solemnity of exultation. Over time, this seven-week Pentecost season accumulated multiple meanings. It celebrated not only Christ's death and resurrection, but also his ascension into heaven and the sending of the Holy Spirit onto the church. And in the current calendar of the Western churches, of course Pentecost is primarily associated with the coming of the Holy Spirit. But it still concludes the Easter season, and it opens onto a long period of ordinary time known vaguely as the season after Pentecost. So you are graduating from seminary in the afterglow of the church's highest season of celebration at the beginning of the season after Pentecost. And although this season is ordinary, in the current Western calendar it slowly focuses the Pentecostal afterglow into a white-hot flame of expectation for Christ's second coming in the Pericea. This eschatological hope provides the backdrop for our winter observation of incarnation Christmas. Finally, it must be noted, and I apologize to Matt here, that tomorrow is the feast of the Holy Trinity. On this day, many Christians remember that the good news of God's unity, that we do not serve many conflicting gods, is also the good news of God's triunity, that the one God we worship is the creative and sustaining father and mother of us all, the incarnate, servant, liberator, Jesus of Nazareth, and the ever-present, ever-newing Holy Spirit. So to this point I have situated your graduation within the church's ancient way of marking time. You are graduating in the ordinary season after Pentecost, just before the feast of the Trinity, when hints of hope appear on the horizon for the consummation of Christ's reign. With these temporal markers in mind, I move to a Pentecostal trinitarian charge for you, the graduating class of 2016. First, I charge you to celebrate. Celebrate in the first class, in the first place because you have all finished all of your coursework, right? Wait, what's that? Oh, okay, celebrate because most of you have finished almost all of your coursework. But celebrate also because you have reaped the good harvest of God's ordinary gifts of intellectual and spiritual growth, the support of communities, of friends and family, economic provision and relative political peace, and an earth that in spite of everything still sustains abundant life. Celebrate because God's Spirit yet hovers over this creation, and it is good. And of course as an employee of AMBS, I am obliged to request that you celebrate responsibly, exhibiting a salinity of exaltation. Second, I charge you to renew your commitment to the way of Jesus Christ. You have learned in seminary and elsewhere that following this way involves reconciliation, reconciliation with God and with all of creation. This reconciliation requires us as God's people to abide prayerfully, worshipfully in God's Spirit to make peace among enemies and to pursue healing justice for those marginalized and afflicted by society's pursuit of wealth and power. This way is costly as it was for Jesus. It requires us to overcome our own resistance to it and others to reconciliation. Yet this is the covenant way, the way of life, the way of love. Know that as you go, Jesus is with you always to the end of the age. Renew your commitment to walk with Him. Third and finally, I charge you to rest in the Spirit who rests on you. Note that on the day of Pentecost as reported in Acts 2, the disciples gathered in Jerusalem first heard a sound like the rush of a violent wind that filled the entire house where they were sitting. The Spirit comes in power as a disturbing, disruptive, scouring wind that cannot be escaped. And yet this Spirit comes and it rests on each of those gathered. This surprising juxtaposition between violent power and expectant resting recalls the Spirit's coming upon Mary to engender the Messiah and the Spirit's descent upon Jesus at His baptism. It also reminds us of Paul's promise in Romans 8 that if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies, also through His Spirit that dwells in you. You can rest in the Spirit because the Spirit rests on and in you. The rich life with God you desire, the healing, the freedom from sin, the power for liberating ministry, all of this is made possible because the Spirit rests upon you. So in this ordinary season after Pentecost, this indeterminate time after graduation, I charge you to celebrate God's provision to renew your commitment to Jesus' way and to rest in the Spirit. Amen. Spirit of God, strong and gentle. We come to be near you. To dwell and rest. Touch us. Liberate us. Feel us. Fill us. We rest in your silence. Receiving your strength. Your wisdom. Your holy presence. As you fill our inner beings. Renewed by the power of the Spirit within us. We turn and proclaim. Amen. Let us come before our God in prayer. Merciful God, on this day of celebration and ceremony, this occasion of so many hopeful words and so much high emotion, this liminal and holy time in the presence of your Spirit, we lift up before you, our beloved graduates. From the fullness of our own hearts, we commend these dear friends, these new leaders of the body of Christ, upheld by the wings of the Spirit, gifted with heart, mind, spirit and strength. We commend them to your mercies, oh God. As they go from us now to lead lives worthy of their calling, we entrust them to your tender arms. We ask that you hold them close to your heart, so tightly, so warmly, that they will never be sure whether the heartbeat they hear is theirs or your own. Guide them over the long and often rough roads they will travel. Comfort them in the lonely nights of waiting, wondering and worrying. Be present also in their joy, their laughter, their lightness of being. Be their North Star, their solid rock, their high mountain, their clearest vision. Grant, oh God, grant them long and lovely lives of service in your kingdom. And when it is time, enfold them gently into the communion of all the saints. In the name and the faith of Christ we pray. Amen. We will continue our praying by turning in hymnal a worship book to number 357. Oh Master, let me walk with thee. Please stand and remain standing. To the graduating class for the gift they are giving to the school of the benefit of future students. A hammock, a beautiful, brightly colored hammock. I can't imagine a more wonderful gift with a theme of patience and resting in the spirit. Thank you. All are invited to a reception immediately following the benediction and the recessional with graduates and faculty. The reception will be in the fellowship hall. So please join in a time of celebration and enjoying some treats together. Please receive this word of blessing. A blessing for the graduates and for all of us gathered here. May we lay aside every weight and all the sin that clings so closely. May we run with patience the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross disregarding its shame and has taken his seat at the right hand of God. Run with patience. Go out with joy. Amen.