Epiphany of Love – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

 A text – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

^13:1If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ^13:2 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. ^13:3If 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. ^13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ^13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; ^13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ^13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ^13:8 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. ^13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, ^13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ^13:11 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. ^13:12For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, 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. ^13:13And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

A reflection:

We might wonder why this familiar text, read at so many weddings, is designated an Epiphany text. But it’s all about suddenly knowing something you didn’t know before, seeing something you might even have been looking for.

Paul is writing about the importance of having love. You might have a lot of amazing gifts and talents, but without love they all fall flat. Then he tries to describe what real love is actually like – and what it is not like. We know these descriptions. We have heard them many times. Patient, kind, not arrogant or rude. And it hopes and believes all things. And then the best: it endures all things. Even death. And it outlasts even the most special of the spiritual gifts. And love is something each and every human being has and can always have, because we are made in the image of God, who is love.               

And then the epiphany part of the passage: I am bound now by all my limitations, but someday I will know more – new things will be shown to me and my understanding will be complete. An epiphany is coming; I will know completely, and I will be known completely. What a wondrous thing that will be, to know and to be known completely and in love, no less!  

We can rejoice that we are the children of a loving God. As wonderful as we think love is right now, when we pass into the next life and meet God, we will know what deep and eternal love is like, because we will be in it. Right in it. As we watch dear loved ones pass away, we can know that they are passing into the eternal love of God their Creator. They are coming home to know love fully and completely. Their epiphany is just around the corner.         

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the gifts of faith, hope, and love. Thank you for sharing them with us on earth and letting us experience them to help us in our journey of life. Help us to remember that your love, deep and true and eternal, waits for us like a great epiphany when we cross over into eternal life with you. Amen.