1-2-2014

   Good Morning to All,

    1 Corinthians 13:12; “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

    Have you ever gone through a funhouse with the mirrors?  The ones that have the curved mirrors that distort the way things look.  They are also usually smeared and the lighting is bad so it can be hard to see clearly in them.  We can usually only get vague or hazy images.  We can never really tell exactly what we are looking at.  It is a dim reflection of what we see.

    Thousands of years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato, once described our life as one where we never really saw the true image.  We only saw a shadow of the image on the wall ahead of us.  It was as if life was occurring behind us and a strong light was casting the shadows on the wall ahead of us.  We saw the movement and the shapes but we didn’t see the true form.  In some ways this is what Paul is telling us in this verse.  In this verse, and this chapter, he is explaining what true love is like.

    In this chapter of Corinthians, often called the love chapter, Paul is describing true and complete love.  In Greek it is agape.  This is the type of sacrificial love which God displays for us in Jesus.  God loves us so completely that He sent Jesus to die in our place and he did this before we loved him.  God did this for the portion of his creation that he loved so much he wouldn’t destroy them and start over.  He redeemed us, he bought us back from our own sin in order to make us his own again. 

    It is the kind of love which we can never fully grasp or understand in our current form.  We may speak of this kind of love but no human truly has it.  We all have limits to our love.  We may claim to love unconditionally but in our hearts we have a limit.  It might be different for different people but it exists.  So when we talk of this kind of love; this never ending, sacrificial, all-encompassing love; we really cannot understand it.

    Paul is telling us that what we see, that is what we perceive, is just a dimmed reflection in a mirror compared to God’s love for us.  It is so far beyond our comprehension.  We have nothing to compare it to.  We only have God’s mercy showered upon us; declared to us in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.  There is no other kind of love that comes even close to this kind of love.  That is why Paul describes it as he does.  Love is patient, kind, never ends are just a few of the descriptions. 

    We will never fully understand it until we get to heaven.  It will always be upon us but we will only be able to grasp it like a dull mirrored image.  So we can take heart in a love so great, we cannot even imagine it.  With a love that great, we can know that our salvation is certain and our hope secure.

Gracious God, you are love.  Through you we see true love and yet we cannot comprehend.  As you send your love to us, help us to share some of that love with others.  Direct us to those who are in most desperate need of your love.  Guide us by your Spirit.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret