Mar 20 - "Wedding Day"

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or 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 in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
*******************************
As I sit here and write, I am smiling and rejoicing in the Lord's plan, His work in the world and the way He times things out...just perfectly. Lord, You are marvelous and glorious! Heavenly Father, I love how you make things come together, bringing joy to our lives!

Because today is a special and joyous occasion (my baby sister Abbi is getting married!!), I was going to step aside from my normal process of writing a meditation from one of the readings in the Daily Office. My plan was to meditate on the passage about the miracle of water to wine at the wedding in Cana, Jesus' first miracle. Right before I was ready to search for it, I thought I should at least check to see what the readings today were. What if God had delivered something better? And...what do you know...I scan down through the text and there, right in front of me, is 1 Corinthians 3:1-13! Probably the most-read scripture at wedding ceremonies around the world. How God must be smiling down upon the Wilson and Rosen families today!

This is one of those passages in which Paul packed so much into a a short section of verses. Paul obviously knew love. He captures every essence of it; patience, kindness...bearing, believing, hoping and enduring. There are those who would say the feeling of love is just a set of chemicals in our body, reacting to external stimuli. Some have even said the chemical processes which occur in the body when a person "feels love" is basically the same as when we eat chocolate.

But love is so much more!

God brought Christ to the world to live with us because He loves us. Christ sacrificed Himself on the cross because He loves us. God sent the Holy Spirit to be a companion for us after Christ left the world because He loves us. We do so many things because of the love we have for friends and family. We make sacrifices, we give, we put others' needs in front of our own. Would we do all of these things as a result of a chemical reaction? I don't think so.

Today is a day that will be overflowing with love. At the dinner we shared together last night, celebrating the joining today of Abbi and Ben, I could see that God , in His divine purpose, was bringing together two families who abound in love. There were smiles, laughter, hugs, tears of joy...all coming out because of one thing: the love between Abbi and Ben.

I say it again: Lord, you are marvelous and glorious! Today, my cup overflows, my soul is bursting with joy!!!!

So, brothers and sisters, love, love, love, love, love!!!!! Unlike anything else in God's marvelous creation, Love is the thing that, when given, does not diminish you. Its giving away does not leave you with something less or smaller, the giving of Love...the living in Love...builds you up and comes back to you ten-fold.