What Is Love? 1 Corinthians 13
READ 1 CORINTHIANS 13
MEDITATION: This chapter has been correctly called a hymn of love. Many would argue that the 13th chapter of first Corinthians is not merely the finest prose in St Paul’s letters but also in the entire New Testament. Theologians seem to agree that the Holy Spirit had full burners working when He inspired Paul of Tarsus on this passage.
All of us at some time have asked in one form or another, “What is love?” There are of course many answers to the question. The one offered by mystics is the one I find most satisfying. They would say simply that love is a person. His name is Jesus. And, if you want to be an authentic lover, become that Jesus. To paraphrase Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney, He is the “lure let down to tempt the soul to rise.” One author further suggests that wherever Paul mentions the word “love,” we should substitute the word “Jesus.”
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So 1 Corinthians 13 will read this way: Jesus is always patient and kind. He is never jealous. He is never boastful or conceited. He is never rude or selfish. He does not take offense and is not resentful. He takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth. He is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
Paul is emphatic in stating in 1 Corinthians 13 that the gifts of the Holy spirit are useless, meaningless, if they are not immersed with love. Without love the great wonders of the Spirit that still attract people such as speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesying, are a resounding gong or clashing cymbal. Consider this, a cymbal may have a place in an orchestra, but no one goes to a cymbal concert. There is something far more important in which a cymbal must participate: being part of the orchestra. The ability to prophecy, to comprehend mysteries, even the gift of a faith so great that one could move mountains as Jesus told the disciples they could do, all these gifts are wonderful, but meaningless without love.
Sadly, we all have experiences of people who claimed to have great faith but who do not know what is love really about. We have all met people who were so stern, so harsh in their dealings with others, so rigid in what they thought was proper Christianity, that they drove their children out of their families and, if they were priests, their people out of their parishes. Without love, they had nothing. Without love, we, as individuals and as Church, are nothing.
What has been your experience of love? Who has loved you beyond your imagination and comprehension? Are there persons whom you have admired from a distance but found at close range that, they had no love of God in their hearts? How are you manifesting the gifts of God with genuine love in your heart? Do people experience the love of God when they are in your company? Does your daily living and associations show forth the love of God in a way and manner that inspires others?
ACTION: List ways that you intend to demonstrate the love of God for others through the exercise of your gifts beginning from this week onwards. Remember the small ways may be even more profound than some grand plan. Begin to practice those ways immediately.
PRAYER: Father God, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me. I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me. If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there. Teach me today to love you more. Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child. In Jesus name, Amen. (Add your own intentions)
