An Unexpected Ending
Robert Heuer
As we find ourselves at the end of this unscripted school year, our usual routines have been replaced with some temporary alternatives. Final examinations took place, but virtually. Residence halls were vacated, but likely long before now. Additionally, the joy and celebration of graduation ceremonies have been significantly altered. Many were held virtually, some are delayed, but largely all have occurred differently than graduates originally planned.
Our family is also experiencing a delay in celebrating graduation! My wife finished her Master's degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was scheduled to walk across the stage in December 2019 until the birth of our first child made travel from Dallas to Louisville somewhere in between unwise and impossible. We arranged for her to join the ceremony in May 2020, thinking she would walk across the stage three days ago. Alas, like some of the families of our student-athletes, we find ourselves looking ahead in the calendar to find yet another time we can celebrate the culmination of this season of study with cap, gown, and tassel.
I think it is safe to say that none of our student-athletes who enrolled in college four years ago would have imagined or chosen this ending. From the day they arrived on campus, they have been coached to “finish.” Finish the rep, finish the play, finish the game. Something seems missing because we are wired for finality, to seek closure. Since our God displays that closure in His very being, our design craves that because we image Him. God the Father rested when He was finished with His work creating the heavens and the earth. God the Son uttered, “It is finished,” with his final breath as He died upon the cross, accomplishing salvation. God the Spirit was sent to apply the finished work of Christ to us as believers and continue to finish our transformation from sinful to perfect. We crave a finish because we were created by a finisher.
I find myself fixating upon Jesus and His finished work. Because of Christ’s death on the cross and the closure He gives us – eternity with Him – we can be free from fear that the verdict of our eternal standing before God will be delayed to a later date, canceled, or moved virtually like this year’s graduation ceremonies. It’s CLOSED. Done. For you and me. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (ESV)."
Even though God the Father finished His work of creation, things went sideways. Humanity experienced its first unscripted moment when sin entered the world in Genesis 3. Still today, we feel this in the lack of closure in many areas of life in this broken world. Friendships fade. Jobs end poorly. Teams lose. But we can rest in knowing that all things will eventually find fulfilling closure in the restoration and redemption of our world when Christ returns. Because our God is a finisher, He is working to redeem this now-broken humanity. He is recreating and restoring everything.
And the Spirit is alive and at work in every one of us right now. This pandemic may bring out anxiety in us, or cause strain at home, or expose our helplessness despite our supposed “independence.” Even though it is uncomfortable, the Spirit is at work sanding off our rough edges. Michael Reeves reminds us in his book Delighting In The Trinity, “(T)he Spirit polishes a new humanity who begins to shine with His likeness…the Spirit must take my eyes off myself (which He does by winning me to Christ).” We will be a finished Heavenly product due to the Spirit’s persistent work in us to draw us to God the Son.
This pandemic has left many loose threads untied, but it has not changed the closure we will experience as followers of Christ. Our God is a finisher.
Prayer:
Lord, I thank you that you have finished your work on the cross and you are in the process of finishing your work in us and in the world. Thank you that we will have complete closure in all things when you return. I thank you for this group of administrators and I lift them up to you now. Encourage the faithful brothers and sisters of this group who have shouldered heavy burdens of leadership in even greater weight during this pandemic. Thank you for these servants. I pray you continue your work through these brothers and sisters to make your Word known throughout Intercollegiate Athletics. Amen
Cover Image by Ben White