“Let this be known to you, and listen to my words.
...God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father
and poured him forth, as you see and hear.”
—Acts 2:22, 32-33

One of the significant losses caused by the COVID-19 crisis is the cancellation of school and university graduations. Among the many people for whom we are praying these days, it is good for us to remember all of the students who will not graduate with the ceremonies most of us have enjoyed.

One of the regular features of high school and college graduations is the commencement address. Dignitaries of all kinds strive to wax eloquently about the challenges and opportunities facing the bright-eyed graduating class sitting before them. And many of these speakers will make the point that a “commencement” has to do not with the ending of something but rather the beginning of something new, since the definition of commencement is “a beginning.”

In keeping with that theme, good commencement speakers do not focus their speeches on the past, even though memories tend to flood the minds of the graduates themselves. Instead, the speakers draw on the past experiences of the graduates, as well as historical events, to show how those past experiences have shaped the graduates in the present, and will help to shape their futures. But, in the end, the main focus is on the future, that which is just beginning.

The new age that commences with the Resurrection has one critical difference from the commencement of adulthood that we celebrate at high school and college graduations. The age of the Resurrection is filled with much more than opportunities for those who believe in Jesus. The age of the Resurrection is filled with promise.

With this focus on the future, it’s clear the speaker’s job is to offer hope to the graduates. Telling them they’ve just wasted their money because the world is “going to hell in a hand-basket” and that they are not prepared for the real world is not what school administrators have in mind when they invite commencement speakers. And so, in order to instill hope in the graduates, speakers typically emphasize “opportunity,” which is a positively charged, if somewhat vague and elusive, word. “Opportunities are out there!” “Seize every opportunity!” 

Opportunities are great, of course. But whatever else we could say about them, they are not guarantees. Although we often hear the slogan, “You can do anything you set your mind to,” I hope we all recognize that this is not literally true. This slogan is more motivational than factual.

Why am I spending all of this time talking about commencement addresses as we approach the Third Sunday of Easter? The reason is that what we have from Jesus in Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 24:13-35) and St. Peter in today’s first reading (Acts 2:14, 22-33) are, in a sense, commencement addresses. 

Both Jesus, speaking to the disbelieving disciples on the Road to Emmaus that first Easter Sunday afternoon, and Peter, speaking to the crowd gathered around the apostles and Mary on the first Pentecost, are preaching about the beginning of an utterly new thing happening in the world and in the lives of their hearers: the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. 

Without focusing on the past, both Jesus and St. Peter draw on the history of God’s people in order to show how their experience during the age of the Old Testament points to its fulfillment in Jesus. These past experiences of the Law, the prophets, and kings of Israel have prepared the way for Jesus Christ, and shaped God’s people into the kind of people who are equipped to believe in Jesus today.

Looking toward the future, the Easter preaching of Jesus and Peter tells us that a new day has dawned for humanity. With the Resurrection of Jesus, we have the greatest “commencement” imaginable, the beginning of new life for all those who believe in Jesus. This new life cannot be conquered by sin or death, provided we are faithful to Him.

The new age that commences with the Resurrection has one critical difference from the commencement of adulthood that we celebrate at high school and college graduations. The age of the Resurrection is filled with much more than opportunities for those who believe in Jesus. The age of the Resurrection is filled with promise. And this promise is not the promise we refer to when we say, for example, that a young baseball player or scientist has a lot of “promise.” That just means they have potential. 

The age of the Resurrection — the age in which we live today — is filled not just with promise, but with the promise: the promise of God to His people, the promise of salvation. Unlike “opportunity” or “potential,” there is no doubt in the promise of God. What the Resurrection offers us is certain: the promise of new life, of unending life, of indestructible life, of life with God in the most perfect union of love we could possibly hope for. 

We are enduring an extremely difficult time right now. Yet in the midst of the storms and trials of this life, with all of its challenges and opportunities, its good and its evil, its potential for fulfillment and for heartbreak, we need to take comfort in the promise of the Resurrection. 

Our most powerful enemies — Satan, sin, and death — lie defeated, ruined, and we don’t ever need to fall into their power again. We only need to live lives of faith, hope, and love, and refuse to give in to doubt, despair and darkness.  

We don’t need to worry about the future. We only need to work on it, to be faithful believers in Jesus and members of His Church. We need to remain close to Jesus, Who always remains close to us. The Resurrection of Jesus gives us more than a future opportunity. The Resurrection gives us the promise that our future with God is absolutely secure.