 A warm welcome to everyone here, especially our graduates and their families and friends, and our faculty, staff, members of the Board of Trustees, and our commencement speaker Dr. Palmer Becker. Warm welcome to everyone to this 72nd commencement of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary – a bi-national seminary of Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA. There are 21 persons completing their programs of study in 2018. We gather to celebrate their commitment as followers of Jesus to grow in body, mind, and spirit as leaders for God's reconciling mission in the world. We gather as a community of witnesses to give thanks for their successful completion of the race. The race these graduates have run – upheld by the love of their family and friends, the guidance of the faculty and staff of AMBS, and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. If you are able, please stand for the call to worship and invocation. The Creator God made this bright day. May we rejoice and be glad in it. Whether we come from far or near, with joy or weariness, with anticipation or apprehension, may we join in body, mind, and spirit to worship – to worship the One who breaks the darkness with liberating light – to praise the One who preached the gospel, calming storms and healing dread diseases – to give thanks to the One present among us this day with illuminating power and joy. Let us pray, O merciful, loving Holy God, free our spirits to worship you in spirit and truth. May all that weighs us down, the regrets, the worries, the turmoil and pain of our world, be infused with the joy of your resurrected presence among us, Lord Jesus Christ. We rejoice that you have looked with favor on us, your lowly servants, calling us to be leaders for your reconciling mission in the world. We delight to celebrate this milestone in our journeys of faith and together, as one body, we sing for joy and gladness, giving thanks to you, our Lord, for what you have done. Amen. Please remain standing and turn in, sing the story, the purple songbook, to number one, praise the One who breaks the darkness. Being from Mark 1, verses 21-28, they went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then, there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, What is this? A new teaching, and with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. But once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. Mark 3, 13-15. He went up to the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. Mark 3, 13-15, a long version.