Graduation Address, MRLH, 2014

Who are you?  Thoughts upon a graduating class

Who are you?  Among all the questions that people ask themselves over the course of their lives, there may be none so significant as this brief phrase.  Once you come to terms with the idea that you actually exist—if you doubt it, bang yourself on the head once, and that should settle the matter—the next logical question is, “Who am I?” 

You are not alone in wondering the answer to this question.  Whole fields of Social Science, Psychology, Politics, and Theology, with innumerable books written over millennia, have wrestled with it.  Every person who has drawn breath upon this beautiful sphere has pondered it, and so will you.  For a while, you might think you can answer it with titles and trophies, but you’ll eventually realize that these are things you’ve done (or have been done to you,) and that you are more than your experiences.  You are now graduates of Mount Rainier Lutheran High School, and will have a certificate, a plaque, a transcript, perhaps a few awards, to prove it.  You’ll throw parties, have celebrations, and be congratulated.  But like your 8^th grade graduation before this, and your Kindergarten graduation before that, you’ll move past this milestone… and that’s how you’ll know that you are something more than your experiences, your awards, and your accomplishments, and your failures.  All the things you do become stuck in the past like creatures frozen in amber, but you keep moving forward.  You are something unique, and you are not your trophy case or award wall.

And you are also not your neighbor, or anyone other than yourself.  If you doubt this, bonk your neighbor on the head, and I’m sure they will settle that matter for you, too.  You are an individual, and have many relationships with other people around you.  And though the parties will roar, and the pictures will be snapped, this graduation experience will pass behind you, as well.  Some of these neighbors you’ve known for years will strike off for places unknown, and some will stay nearby.  Some will marry, some will not.  Some will become absorbed by work or play, and others will not.  Some will live long, stay connected… and others will not.  Like the relationships you had in middle school and kindergarten, these relationships will change as you move past this milestone, too.  And yet, even as relationships and neighbors change, you will continue to be you.  In this you will discover, that you are not your friends, not your family, nor your enemies; you are not your relationships with other people.  Your relationships may be something you build or destroy, but they are not you.

And when you come to realize that you are not your trophies, your experiences, your relationships, or your neighbors, you will come to a very quiet and scary place.  Once you realize that your degrees and certifications, your friends and your adversaries, your money and your toys, your groups and your hobbies, your awful and excellent adventures, are not you… you will have to grapple with who you really are.  Not the masks, the make-up, and the scripts… but you.

All alone, without your masks and diversions, when you ask that question, you have only three ways to answer it.  The first is to look inside yourself.  Of course, asking yourself who you are is a bit of circular argumentation… unless you have a few extra personalities, which might be fun for a while, until they lock you in a little room with a comfy jacket.  In truth, your eyes can see that you are here, but they have no power to explain why and what you are.  All they can do is describe is what they see.  The same is true for your mind—it can explore itself, but only observe what it perceives.  You don’t really have the perspective to stand outside yourself, and explain both where you come from and where you’re going—let alone, who you really are.  Your eyes and mind, sharp as they may appear, are dull when examining themselves… often far weaker than we realize, and prone to conclude ridiculous things.  We are poor and ill equipped to answer this for ourselves.  And yet, so many people in the world spend their whole lives wrapped up in themselves, trying to answer this question from the inside, with futility, confusion, and despair the only end they can find.  No matter how deeply you peer into your bellybutton, the lint will not tell you who you are.

Another path the world will offer you to answer this question, is to let your neighbor answer it for you.  At first glance this seems better—at least your neighbor, or your family, or your community, has the external perspective to observe you better, right?  Of course, what usually results, is the old axiom of the “blind leading the blind,” with everyone getting lost.  If you don’t have the resources to know who you are, what makes you think you can really know who someone else is?  You can look at your neighbor next to you, and stripped of all their experiences, accolades, awards, triumphs and loses, you still can’t get behind their eyes.  You don’t have the resources to know yourself, and you certainly don’t have the resources to know your neighbor.  You can observe what they do and what they say, but you can’t really know who they are.  And if that’s true of you, why would you ever let your neighbor tell you who you are?  They don’t have any more resources or perspective than you do.  Oh, sure… you’ll find lots of people who want to tell you who you are, but it usually just serves their own purposes or ignorance.  The world will happily make you a slave to your manipulative and ignorant neighbor, be they few or many.  But in the end, they won’t really know who you are, and your question will be left unanswered.

Your last option, is to seek the answer to your question from One who actually knows you.  Of all the sinful, broken, and limited people you will meet in the world, none of them will really know you anymore than you will know yourself.  But there is One who comes to you, who actually does know you.  He knows you, because He made you, sustains you, and keeps your eternity in His infinite hands.  This One has come to you, to tell you who you are.  He knows you are broken by your own sin, able neither to understand nor save yourself.  He knows your neighbors are fallen and broken, too, unable to understand or save themselves or each other.  He knows where you came from, because He knew you before you were ever brought to be through your parents.  He knows where you’re going, because He knows your eternity before you enter it.  He has spoken to you, and to all people, through His Prophets and Apostles, leaving a written record for you—an account unique in all of human history, spanning millennia, and preserved for you today.  In these Holy Scriptures, He tells you precisely who you are, if you are willing to hear Him.

And what does He say to you?  He tells you that you are His creation.  You were made by Him in His very image, to live in His love and fellowship forever.  You are descended from your parents, and have inherited their Fall into sin, evil, and depravity, so that your heart has turned from your Creator toward the darkness of the evil one.  As a fallen creature, you deserve death and hell, together with all the twisted and evil spirits who have followed the evil one into perdition.  But you are not left in your Fall, abandoned to your just fate.  For God’s love for you knows no limits.  He has loved and pursued you from all eternity, that He might reclaim you, give you new life, and save you from the terrors of death and hell.  He has, for you, sent His only begotten Son to suffer, die, and rise again, that if you will hear and believe Him, you will live—for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, that you, might live through Him.

That is who you are.  You are a child of God, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, and given eternal life in the love and fellowship of your Savior.  Who are you?  You are beloved.  You are ransomed.  You are saved.  You are the inheritor of the Kingdom of God, by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.  You are destined for eternal glory, to shine forth in the New Creation with more brilliance than the noonday sun.  You are His, and His glory you will reflect. 

No matter where you go in this world, no matter how long or short your time in this world may be, always remember that you belong to the Truth who sets you free.  As one redeemed and loved in Christ, you are a witness to His love and mercy for the whole world.  You are a light, shining in the confused darkness of this world, living by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  And your life, every day, from the moment of your conception to the never ending reaches of eternity, is kept in the blessed fellowship and love of God your Savior, together with all who will hear, believe, and live. 

And to this God I commend you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Be fearless in life, in love, in faith, in hope.  You are His, and there is nothing that can snatch you from His hand.  You are a child of the Lord God Almighty, and there is nothing to fear.  You are born and kept in love forever, and your hope never fails, because Jesus Christ never fails.  Go forth, dear Children of God, and be blessed forever.  Amen.