It’s commencement season here in East Tennessee. The high schools in the area are holding their commencement ceremonies this weekend, and colleges and universities have also been holding theirs recently as well. Even our church’s preschool is hosting our annual “Moving Up” celebration this week in the sanctuary as some are heading off to kindergarten or pre-K and another school year comes to a close.

At some point while we were sitting in the sun for three and a half hours in the Vanderbilt football stadium last weekend for our older son Noah’s commencement ceremony, our younger son Wesley asked a good question: Why do we call it “commencement”—a word which means “beginning”—if we’re celebrating an ending to a course of study?

I didn’t know the answer to that question, so I did a little research. I learned that the term dates back to the Middle Ages when students were considered apprentices in the crafts for which they were training. When they had completed their studies, they then qualified for admission into the various guilds, marking the beginning or the “commencement” of their official careers. So a commencement marks a new beginning in the student’s life and career.

Several years ago, the band Semisonic came out with a song called “Closing Time.” One of the refrains in that song says “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Commencement ceremonies mark the end of one beginning and the start of a new one. It’s a time to look both backward with gratitude for the miles traveled and also forward with hope for the journey ahead.

Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good posture for all of us to have, no matter what season of the year it is or what season of our lives we find ourselves in.