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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
What Love's Got To Do With It
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
God's kind of love is life's most realistic ingredient, anything but romantic.
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When a couple ask me to officiate at their wedding, I meet with them at least three times before the rehearsal for conversations about marriage. So far so good.
But inevitably, while I'm talking about marriage they're thinking about the wedding.
We usually cover the map of relationship issues. Family ties, family planning. Money, sex, food. Career choices, relocation. Fighting fair, forgiving, getting to Yes. Spiritual values. And more.
Even so, they're thinking mostly about the wedding.
And hardly a wedding happens that I'm not asked to include a reading of The Love Chapter. 1 Corinthians 13. One of God's greatest hits!
Rightly so.
But that lovely poem about love proves my point about wedding vs. marriage.
Weddings are romantic in nature. The Greek word for romantic love is eros. Erotic love is love with an appetite, love that thrives on pleasure and gratification. That might come from a beautiful painting or a crystal clear day on Lake Tahoe, as much as from sexual stimulation. Romantic love is all about feelings.
The kind of love 1 Corinthians 13 talks about is agape, love with no strings attached. This love is all about choices.
It's about the promises a bride and groom make at the heart of their wedding ceremony. To honor and care for and serve each other, in good times and in bad times, as long as they both shall live. Amen.
Love, it says, is patient, kind, generous. Love holds no grudges, isn't greedy. It's strong, courageous, full of trust. Tenacious. Unconditional.
Wow.
Every one of those modifiers implies this kind of lover is constantly choosing to do the loving thing. Just because she loves you. Even if you're not behaving very lovably right now. Maybe you'll appreciate the gesture. Maybe you'll resent it. That's not the point, really. He's simply loving you, choosing to do the loving thing. Just because.
Think of that other greatest hit from God, John 3:16. God loves the world so much that he gave up his one and only Son, so nobody needs to perish but everybody can live forever in God's loving presence.
Or the eighth chapter of Romans. Absolutely nothing in the whole wide world can separate us from the love of God, whom we see embodied in Christ Jesus.
There you have it. Substitute for "love" in 1 Corinthians 13 the name "Jesus," and you get a personality profile of Jesus as the Gospels portray him. Time and time again, he decided to do the loving thing, with no strings attached. Just because.
Brides and grooms tend to catch on after they've been husbands and wives a while.
Romance runs hot and cold, beyond their control. But God's kind of love lasts forever -- always ready to honor and serve, to do the loving thing, just when it's needed most.
Just because.
posted by Jack Buckley at
6:51 PM
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