Love One Another

Boys and girls do you love weddings? Is Ella here? Two years ago Ella was one of the brides at our Buttsbury role-play weddings here and she was great!

I recently worked out that in the last 11 years I have married no less than 32 women! Oh, and 32 men. I mentioned this to some year 5 children recently and you should have seen their faces. Of course I was the Vicar at all of those weddings.

I was at a wedding on Friday afternoon and love was in the air. I could sense the love between Joseph and Becky the bride and groom, and between proud parents and their children; and as the bride and groom left the church three gospel singers sang, “Love, love, love …love is all you need.” I could feel and sense the love - but feelings come and go. Our feelings go up and down like the weather – but love is not a feeling.

So if love is not about how we feel, what is love?

Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

The Bible tells us exactly what love is. Love is about things that we do and we do not do to each other. The most popular Bible reading for weddings is taken from a letter written by St. Paul to a church. So, Christ Church, St. Paul also wrote this for us. This is how God wants you and me to be towards each other, with no exceptions at all:

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love is not proud. Love is not rude. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. Love rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

My dear friends in Christ we’ve fallen short. We need to repent and we need to love as Jesus loves us.

So let's pray.