Quote Unquote: It is Finished
Quote, unquote is an eclectic sampling of things said at and about Hope College.
With Commencement on May 5 marking both an ending and a beginning for the Class of 2024, the Rev. Shomari Tate reflected on four lessons revealed by Christ’s life, sacrificial death and the transformational beginning that Jesus made possible.
Tate, chaplain of discipleship at Hope, titled his address “It is Finished,” Jesus’ final words on the cross (John 19:30).
“My brothers, sisters and siblings, never in the history of humankind have more important words ever been spoken,” Tate said. “These words teach us everything that we need to know about our existence.”
First, he noted, “Life is built on adversity.”
“I pray that all of you, at some point in your lives if not today, will come to understand that if love and integrity are going to be central themes of your character, you are going to be faced with adversity,” he said.
“Somewhere in the world right now and throughout history, someone has had to pay the cost for you and for I to exist,” he said. “Jesus Christ reached down into the shadow of death so that you and I could have life again.”
Next, Tate said, “Life is about duty.”
“It is about obligation; it is about our morals; it is about our responsibilities,” he said. The centrality of duty is especially clear, Tate said, “when we creep into the corridors at the height of Jesus’s life at the height of his adversity, where he’s in the garden of Gethsemane and he says, ‘My Father, if this cup of suffering could pass; But, nevertheless, thy will be done.’”
“And when it becomes your time to drink from your cup, whatever that cup may be, Class of 2024, will you say these same words?” Tate said.
Third, Tate said, “Life is about God’s Purpose”
“When Jesus says [‘It is finished’], he speaks of the fulfillment of some great consummation of this crimson thread that has hung over the shadow of his entire life,” Tate said.
“God has a plan for each and every one of your lives here today.”
“God has a plan for each and every one of your lives here today,” he said. “And that plan was not thought out of nowhere. It did not come up at the last minute, but was etched into eternity.”
And last, Tate said, “Life is about God, because the consequences of sin still live today.”
“These consequences live in the world that you are commencing into,” he said. “[A]nd it is up to you — the next generation of leaders — to step into this world of adversity with duty and with purpose.”
The ceremony was preceded by Baccalaureate in Dimnent Memorial Chapel, which featured the sermon “I’ve got this! … No you don’t,” by Dr. Vicki-Lynn Holmes, retiring at the end of the school year as associate professor of mathematics and education.
She based her text on Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; and John 15:5b, “for without me you can do nothing.” The passages, she explained, provide a crucial reminder of both the limits of human capability and the boundlessness of God’s support.
“No matter how smart, rich, pretty, etcetera you are, you WILL come to the end of your rope. You will come to the end of your talent and skills. You will face obstacles that you cannot throw enough money at or wish away,” she said. “But God has no such limitations… He sees solutions you cannot. He makes ways for you out of no ways.”