A Holy Week Message

Over the years I have been collecting articles, poetry, stories, etc, etc, that I have found interesting, informative or that have just appealed to my sense of humor, and the way my mind works. Several years ago a friend of mine sent me a copy of a sermon she heard given by Rev. Fleming Rutledge at Trinity Church in Boston, Mass. in 1998. Since we are about to celebrate Holy Week I thought the message in his sermon was worth sharing. I am going to edit it some, but you will get the general idea why this is a good message to think about during this week.

”Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends…“
1 Corinthians 13:7-8

It has often been noted that the famous Corinthian chapter on love really describes Jesus. He is the supreme model of mature love, today and forever. Jesus ”is patient and kind“; Jesus ”is not jealous or boastful“; Jesus ”is not arrogant or rude.“ The capacity to postpone gratification lies at the very heart of mature love; Jesus ”does not insist on his own way“. the love of Jesus ”never ends“.

It is a good bet that most wedding guests hearing 1 Corinthians 13 understand it sentimentally, not being aware that the passage is really about the love of Christ as it take shape in the Christian community. In actuality, Paul’s words have nothing at all to do with romantic love — which, for all its fabled intensity is a relatively short-lived phenomenon. Love cannot stay on the mountaintop. It must come down. Love must go where it is most needed, not at the pinnacle of youth and beauty, but in the valley of the shadow of death…1 Corinthians is about Jesus as he sets forth to be crucified. ”Love bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things.

We have all had our mountaintop experience at some point in our life. Love is grateful for the experience on the mountain top, but knows that it cannot stay there. Love persists when the glory has faded when the romance has fled, when the curtain has been destroyed on the stage set. Love never gives up.

The King James version of the Bible is stronger in some ways; Love ”suffereth long and is kind; love vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, is not easily provoked…love never faileth.“ Love does not even require reciprocity; love goes to Memphis, love gets down on the pavement, loves goes to Jerusalem where the enemy lies in wait.

”Love bears all things, endures all things.“ Jesus turns his back on his glory, he comes down from the mountain, the throne of the majesty on high. He comes down from the infinite spaces of uncreated light and prepares to enter the darkness of human suffering and human pain. God is not looking down with detachment from a great distance. God did not remain majestically aloof somewhere over the rainbow. God is not a distant observer of our struggles.

So whenever one human being reaches out for another in the midst of suffering, whenever a person in power stoops down to help, whenever the mighty bend to the
lowly, there is the Lord. Whenever you do this, you are becoming Jesus’ disciple.

And whoever you are and wherever your pain, this very day in the power of his Word
spoken, He reaches out, He comes down, to seek you, to find you, to embrace you.

Alice Stauffer