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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Pentecost And The Rocktown High School Graduating Class Of 2025

Our grandson Ian was an honored part of Harrisonburg's
Rocktown High School's first graduating class.

Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs.
Acts 2:9-11 (NLT)

I was impressed by how many nationalities were represented in the Rocktown High School class of 2025 Saturday night. As graduates' names were called out for each receiving their diploma, I couldn't help but note that the event was on the eve of the Christian celebration of Pentecost.  

The Hebrew word for Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, is Shavuot, celebrated 50 days after Passover, a commemoration of God's gift of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And in the Genesis portion of Torah, we are told God's blessings are to extend to all the nations of the earth through a great multitude of descendants of Abraham and Sarah.

Here in our community people from multiple nations have become an integral part of our community, one that waa designated as a Welcoming City by the Harrisonburg City Council in 2016. Due to the availability of work in the poultry, agricultural and construction industries in the area, the proportion of foreign born persons in our area, according to one source, has grown to 16.7 percent of our population. This compares to 10 percent in the state of Virginia, and 13.7 percent nationwide. 

So there are now more than 50 languages spoken by students in the Harrisonburg City school system, which serves a total of over 6,400 students. Judging by the names of the 233 in the Rocktown senior class roster, well over half of the members of our grandson's class may be members of families with deep roots in, and strong ties to, other nations and cultures around the world. 

While followers of Jesus are called to "go into all the world," the world has literally come to us, and in impressive numbers. For all the challenges this can create, I see this representing a diversity that can truly bless us as we work, learn and grow together. What better way to become acquainted with other languages and cultures than to develop friendships with our neighbors from around the globe? 

I see the gift of tongues in the Acts account as not simply being a miraculous sign of the Spirit's presence, but a means by which people are able to communicate good news and a deep sense of shalom with God and each other. In the end, the Bible envisions a future in which Spirit-empowered communities everywhere faithfully live out God's will on earth as in heaven.

For these and other reasons we should resist by whatever means possible the current wholesale detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors without due process. We need to remember we are all either native Americans, children of imported slaves or the sons and daughters of immigrants. And that as God's children we all made of one blood, breathe the same air, and are dependent on the same life giving soil and water for our survival.

In the forever future we are all to become one.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:9 (NRSV)

Note: I recently posted the following by a local immigrant: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2025/05/guest-post-ices-impact-on-local.html

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2 comments:

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