Photo by Leighann Renee on Unsplash
Dear Faithful Friends,
When I was a kid around the time of a special gift giving day … say my birthday or Christmas … my parents would ask, “What would you like as a gift?” Depending on the time of life I was in, the answer varied. But, I generally had faith they would give me that gift … or … knowing me so well, something even better. Then, I’d live in hope. This hope helped me extend the reality of the future gift to my present time. For example, I’d imagine playing catch with the new baseball glove I asked for. In my mind, the glove was so real it was almost like I had it already. Yet I waited in hope for the big day. And finally, Christmas arrived … and there was the glove. Even better than I imagined it.
St. Paul famously writes, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) In our Lutheran confessions we have the “Three Solas” … “Sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura” … we are saved “by grace alone, through faith alone, as promised in scripture alone.” “Hope,” which comes from the Greek word “ἐλπίς (elpis)” implies “a reasonable and confident expectation of a future event.” Clearly, as Christians, we are confident in God’s promises that we’re forgiven our sins and will receive eternal life. However great that seems, it’s like my “baseball glove.” I can imagine what that means, but living in my own sin and the brokenness of the world today, it can be hard to see clearly. So, Paul reminds us, “For now we see in a mirror dimly …Now I know in part …” (1 Corinthians 13:12) “Faith” and “Hope” … they allow us to see now, in some way, what God’s promises might look like someday.
The exciting thing is we also experience “Love” in part today. We experience “ἀγάπη (agape)” … sacrificial, servant love … when our brothers and sisters in Christ willingly, for no reason at all comfort and help us during our times of need ... or when we assist others in their need. But, unfortunately, due to the effects of sin in the world, “agape love” doesn’t seem to last.
But Paul affirms, “faith, hope, and love” will remain for eternity. Of the three, love will be the greatest. “Faith” in Christ, His death and resurrection, ensures we receive the gift of forgiveness of sin. In faith, we know that we’re being made holy by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our “hope” gives us a glimpse of our future … our home in eternity. We don’t know what that looks like in reality. But hope gives us an idea. Love is the greatest of the three. Why? In heaven, we’ll still live in a faith that trusts God’s Word. We’ll still live in hope that we’ll experience the unimaginable possibilities of the perfect life our Father intended us to live. But, above all, we’ll see “face to face” … we’ll “know fully” … what we can only imagine, at best, partially today. St. John tells us. “God is love.” (1 John 4:8, 16) God isn’t faith or hope. He is love. We’ll experience “Love” firsthand.
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Jim