Love

This sermon is part of a midweek Advent series on faith, hope, and love.

Text: Song of Sol. 8:4-7; 1 Cor. 13:1-13; John 13:31-35, 15:15-21

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            St. Paul had his work cut out for him when it came to the church in the city of Corinth. The congregation had some deep divides. The separation between the wealthy and poor, the new converts and the longer established ones, Jews and Greeks, those who continued to buy their food from the pagan markets in the temples and those who could not bring themselves to eat those foods sacrificed to idols—all of these added up to a very troubled congregation. That’s not even getting into the private lives of some of the members, who believed that the good news of forgiveness meant that they could indulge in activities that would shock us even today and are too wicked to be spoken of in this company. St. Paul needed to find a way to correct these many errors—and some I haven’t even mentioned—but rather than give a 23-step program or a checklist of solutions about how to improve, St. Paul instead crystallizes their problem with one description: a lack of love.

            When people in our culture think of love, it’s usually of the romantic variety. But even when it’s not, it’s still a rather sentimentalist sort of love. It’s permissive, it allows people to do whatever they want because love would never offer correction or a hard word; it would never tell someone they’re wrong. Love is soft and mushy, yielding and accepting of everything and anything. But this not the way that Scripture talks about love. “Love is strong as death, jealousy as fierce as the grave,” wise King Solomon writes. St. Paul tells us that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, permitting anything to be OK, but that it rejoices with the truth. The author C.S. Lewis said that love forgives the most, but tolerates wrongness the least, always seeking to make the one who’s loved a better and better version of themselves. Love, rather than focusing strictly on how someone makes someone else feel, is instead marked by unselfish, unself-focused service that finds it roots, its ability, its resources to serve in Jesus and His Word. Love is a sign that the Holy Spirit has set someone free, even from his own ego, for the sake of others and service to them rather than to self.

            Love completes things and makes good things even better. It makes them whole and complete. Even the greatest talent or gift, even the highest spiritual gifts that God’s Word talks about, even speaking in tongues, as was given to the Apostles to do on Pentecost, when not exercised with love, is useless, no better than the clanging cymbals used in pagan worship services. Prophecy, speaking divine wisdom and delving into the mysteries of God to proclaim them, when done outside of love, are meaningless. Even the gift of faith, faith that move mountains, when it’s without love, fails to build up the Church or do anyone any good. If good deeds are done, even giving away everything to the poor, if they’re not done in love, they have no spiritual benefit whatsoever. Suffering for the sake of the truth, when done without love, becomes pointless.

            For this reason, St. Paul can confidently say about the threefold virtues—faith, hope, and love—that the greatest of these is love. This is in part because love remains even after faith and hope have completed their race. Faith will, on the Last Day, be replaced by sight. Hope will, when Jesus returns, receive what it patiently waits for. But love is not replaced by anything. It is the highest aspiration, the greatest virtue, because it never fails. It’s stronger than death. Love, when understood the way Scripture speaks of it, is eternal.

            This brings us to the edge of a mystery. For it’s not often that we come across eternal things in this mortal, quickly passing world. Love is not the greatest of our triad of virtues simply because it lasts longest. Rather, love is eternal, it is greatest, because of its source, which is eternal and greatest. Love never ends because God never ends. Love is greatest because God is greatest. God is love, and therefore what we say about God, we can say about His love.

            Again, this is not the permissive, indulgent, or soft, sentimentalized type of love that the world is fixated upon. This love is outward facing. Look again at how love is defined. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Or, that last one can be translated, “Love never falls.” Our English translations often make these descriptions into adjectives because that’s how we most often describe things. But in Greek, the language of the New Testament, these are verbs. Love is acting. It’s expressed in self-forgetful actions that are focused entirely on the other. And where do we see this? In our Lord. Go back and see how this passage is when we look to the one who does these verbs, for us, perfectly: Jesus is patient and kind. Jesus does not envy or boast. Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way; He is not irritable or resentful. Jesus does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Jesus never falls.

            This is what we’ve been getting ready for this entire Advent: love becoming a person; God becoming man in Christ Jesus. He comes to serve us in perfect love; to be perfect love for us. This then colors the way we live in these bodies and lives—not in service to self, not turning love into an opportunity for our own self-gratification, or indulgence, or damaging others and ourselves. We live, we love, as Christ, who is Love, has loved us. As St. John wrote in his first letter, “We love because He first loved us.”

            We will not always succeed. That’s just the reality of being imperfect creatures trying to do something perfectly as love the way God loves. We will only see God’s love in our actions as in a mirror, a mere reflection of His love; 2-dimensional and flat in comparison, and if we’re honest, flawed. But God’s love will cover and even perfect that, as love always does, making good things complete and perfect. And Jesus, who came once before, as we celebrate this season, will come again. And then we will see clearly, not in reflections, but face-to-face. Again, St. John writes to us, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” We will see clearly, we will actually take part in perfect love, that love of God when faith is replaced by seeing our Lord, when hope is fulfilled. When we see God, who is Love, who became man so that He could love us to the end—when we see Him come to be with us forever, we will know—and love—fully, even as we are fully known and loved by Him, now and forever. In the name of Jesus, who is Love. Amen.