1 Corinthians 13:1-13
“What Gives Life Meaning?: The Bridge to the Future”
Last year an article in USA Today analyzed a surge in a group of Americans whom they termed the “spiritually apathetic.”
They aren’t atheists.
Instead, according to the article, “They simply shrug off God, religion, heaven, or the search for meaning and purpose.
Their attitude could be summed up as ‘So what?’”
The article pointed to statistics from recent surveys.
For instance, 44 percent of respondents told a Baylor University study that they spend no time seeking ‘eternal wisdom,’ and 19 percent said that “it’s useless to search for meaning [in life].”
And yet, time and time again it has been proved that although human beings can live for forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air…we can’t live at all without hope, without meaning.
According to a recent study, the suicide rate in the United States has increased by 5 % over the past 36 months or three years.
And in some age brackets, that percentage climbs to as high as 16 %.
So even though there may be an increasing number of the “spiritually apathetic,” people can’t survive nor thrive this way.
We must have meaning.
What gives your life meaning; does your life have meaning?
Do you even care?
Popular theologian N.T. Wright has written, “When people say, as they sometimes do, that [the Apostle] Paul must have been a very difficult person to have around—that he seems to have been awkward, cantankerous, argumentative, and generally an unpleasant character—[1st Corinthians 13] is the passage I often quote in reply.”
And the reason he does this is because it seems practically impossible to imagine that this passage we are using for our Advent Sermon Series…
…that Paul could have written this very personal letter unless this was the kind of person that he himself was.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Paul lived up to this stunning picture of love every minute of every day.
But what it does mean is that he had spent his life and energy being who he was and doing what he did for the sake of God and other people.
And therefore, Paul lived his life copying and embodying the love that Jesus Himself has shown by dying on the Cross for the sins of the world.
I mean, when we look at the words written in verses 4-8…
…and if we pause to really reflect and think about what they mean and what they look like when they are lived-out—we will see that they describe and deepen our understanding of the highest virtue, the greatest quality, the most Jesus-like characteristic anyone could ever imagine.
And that characteristic is LOVE!!!
What does love look like?
What does Jesus’ love look like?
What is the key to life and thus living a meaningful existence?
Well, here it is.
And the relevance of this insight when compared to a world that seems increasingly to be possessed by the power of evil should drive all of us to ask: “Where else but in Jesus Christ can anyone find salvation from the sins that are ripping us apart, destroying us, ruining so many lives?”
I mean LOOK at the relevance of this passage!!!
There’s a story about when Mozart was a young man living with his father.
He would play a trick on his dad every once in a while.
Young Mozart would come home from a late night with his friends, and his father (who was a musician himself) would already be asleep in bed.
So he would go to the piano, and would play, loudly, a rising scale of notes, getting slower and louder as he headed toward the top.
And then he would stop, one note short, and go to bed himself.
As the story goes, Young Mozart’s dad would toss and turn in bed as this unfinished scale came into his head…into his dreams…and imagination.
And finally, the frustration would be too much to bear.
Eventually, he would drag himself out of bed, stagger downstairs, and play the last note.
The call of love, and the call of life itself is like an unfinished scale, going ahead of us into God’s future.
The music, which will one day be completed, is our destiny!!!
And Love is the bridge to that destiny.
In our passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul sees all of life within the framework of God’s future—which has burst into the PRESENT in the person of Jesus Christ as the world’s one true Lord and Savior!!!
Love is the way of life in the new world, when the Kingdom of God will come in completed form on earth as it is in heaven— “then we will see face to face…then we will know completely in the same way that [we are] completely known.”
As those who are “becoming like Christ,” we need to learn the way of life in God’s Kingdom of which by grace through faith in Jesus Christ we have become a part.
Love is the language which is spoken in God’s Kingdom.
And the meaning of our lives in this present world and at this present time is to learn to speak God’s language!!!
For the language of love is now to be our native tongue!!!
And the language of love is patient, it is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth.
“Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.”
These are the important things in life and in eternity.
But it’s so easy for us human beings to place importance and ultimate meaning on things which are here today and will be gone tomorrow.
Looks.
Power.
Class.
Race.
Wealth.
All this stuff will fade like a flower that blooms and then, before you blink your eyes…
…the pedals have become brown and are starting to drop off…
…and it’s become an ugly thing…
…a dead thing.
Just like that!!!
The people at the Church in Corinth were priding themselves and hanging their hats on the temporal.
They were prophesying, without love or care for other people.
Some may have been saying things like, “You can’t be saved unless you can speak in tongues.”
Others walked with their chins stuck out and their necks an inch or two higher than normal because they thought they were smarter than everyone else.
Others may have had faith, but there are times when faith can be cruel.
A faith that has no love brings only pain and hurt.
Just think of the Crusades.
Some gave generously to the poor, but there’s nothing more humiliating than so-called charity without love.
It’s like throwing scraps to a dog.
It looks down on those it is supposedly helping, and thinks of them as a nuisance.
But patience describes how we are to deal with other people.
Being patient in love is the way God relates and deals with us.
Just think of how patient God is with me and with you.
While we were still sinning, blaspheming, destroying, hating, hurting, lost, running from God and racing toward Satan as fast as our legs could take us Christ died for us.
And after having been beaten, humiliated, spit upon, cursed at and nailed to a Cross to die, by the very people He created and came to save…
…while He was hanging in agony on that Cross Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them…”
How can we, who have been loved so deeply be any less patient?
And God’s love for us pursues us throughout our lives—even when we are at our worst.
And when and if we finally do turn to the One Who loves us beyond comprehension—a party is thrown in heaven and the angels rejoice!!!
That is how God deals with us, and that is how we are called to deal with others.
We are to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, love those who mistreat us, pray for those who hate us, do good to those who are mean to us…
…and in doing so, Love prevails as people turn to Christ.
Love is proven to have conquered evil!!!
And we see that life does truly have great, great meaning, indeed.
Paul tells us that Love is kind.
And kindness chooses mercy over judgment…
…like Jesus did when He was confronted, in John Chapter 8, with the woman caught in adultery.
The law said, “stone her,” Jesus said, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, don’t sin anymore.”
The language of love tells us that mercy trumps over rigid and inflexible rules.
And praise God for that!!!
When on this earth, Jesus broke all the inflexible rules which were made by humans to discriminate, put up barriers between people, and put rituals and material things above love for humankind.
Ultimately, humankind’s anger at Jesus due to His love for us—which goes so against the way of the world—put Jesus on that Cross!!!
We are saved by Christ’s precious and innocent shed blood.
It’s God’s blood.
And it proves that life does have meaning—meaning beyond measure.
There is a surge in the number of Americans whose attitude about life and meaning can be summed up as “so what?”
And we see the results of this all around us.
This past week, a father from Queens, New York was pushed to his death at the Times Square Subway Station.
Another man hurled him onto the tracks.
The man desperately tried to scramble to back onto the platform as onlookers took pictures.
There is even a video of the incident.
One guy snapped 44 pictures as the man, stood hopelessly caught between the tracks and the platform.
He was trying to climb up out of the way of the oncoming train, and many have been wondering aloud why no one—especially the persons taking pictures did not put down their cameras to at least try and help pull him up before he was, and I quote from a story in the New York Post which plastered the picture of the man starring at the oncoming train as he struggled to get out of the way on its front cover…
…before he was “crushed like a rag doll.”
Characteristics and actions which are the opposite of love persist.
People in every generation and in every place have had to deal with the same things.
Impatience, cruelty, pride, jealousy, selfish competition, greed, a lack of forgiveness, revenge, taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others…
All these things existed in the 1st Century and they exist now.
Pride is pride, cruelty is cruelty, evil is evil in every time and place.
But at the same time, the characteristics of love never change either.
And so, we all face a choice.
Will we choose to love or hate?
Will we choose self or God?
Will we follow Satan or Jesus?
Will we live in heaven or hell?
Will our lives be filled with ultimate meaning or emptiness and apathy?
Will we say “I care” or “So what?”
Advent is about hope, it’s about preparing for God’s future; it’s about meaning.
The music of love will one day be completed.
One day, Jesus Himself will come down and finish the scale.
And love is the only thing that will matter, the only thing that will last into God’s new world.
Are we getting prepared?
Amen.
