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JACKSON, Tenn. — May 21, 2022 — Though a graduation ceremony marks the end of students’ time at ������̳, as a “commencement” it serves as a beginning of lives and careers that can glorify God, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said May 21.

“Don’t believe the vanity that we are going to solve it all,” Sasse told Union graduates. “Your work is important. But your work is not the means by which you will achieve status or meaning. Your work is the opportunity to live a life of gratitude to God, who has already given you all gifts by grace.”

Sasse was the keynote speaker at Union’s 197th annual spring commencement in Oman Arena. Six hundred eleven students received their degrees as they completed their Union education.

Lisa Michelle Reed, a mathematics major from Sylacauga, Alabama, received the 112th Tigrett Medal, which is awarded to an outstanding senior in each graduating class.

Sasse was selected as the commencement speaker because his pastor, Kyle McClellan at Grace Church in Fremont, Nebraska, is the father of graduating Union senior Gabrielle McClellan. Sasse told graduates that they go forth from Union during strange days characterized by pandemic, wars and rumors of war.

“Is it the best of times, or is it the worst of times?” Sasse asked. “Yes.”

Despite “all this terrible stuff,” Sasse told graduates that they live in extraordinary times, with opportunities before them that are almost limitless. Technology, while always a temptation to distraction, also provides benefits and blessings – if people of good will can manage to ignore the small percentage of the population whose rantings often dominate the news.

“The reality is, most people believe that we’re created ‘imago dei,’ and we’re meant to love our neighbors, and we don’t have to be obsessed with the angriest people that want to be angry and loud at any given moment,” Sasse said.

He read lengthy passages from Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, telling graduates that wisdom from history helps keep the present in perspective.

“We know there are all sorts of structures of time in nature around us,” he said. “We know what a day is – it’s the earth turning on its axis. What is a month? It’s the moon and it’s our reproductive cycles. What is the year? It is the earth rotating around the sun.

“You know what doesn’t exist in nature?” Sasse continued. “The week doesn’t exist in nature. Week is simply a redemptive announcement from God, that for six days you work, and on the seventh day you can rest.”

So, graduates should number their days, Sasse said, and remember what they were created to do.

“Walk and pray in cemeteries,” he concluded. “Know that we are headed to be food for worms. And yet, as you leave this room today, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Commence.”

Union’s spring commencement included two services. A service for graduate and adult studies students was held at 2 p.m. followed by a service for traditional undergraduate students at 6 p.m.

The full services can be seen at .