The greatest of these
Love as the center
Come to the end of the most famous lines ever written about love, the lines read at half the weddings in the world, and notice what Paul does once the soaring is done. He has said love is patient and kind, that it bears all things and believes all things and never fails. And now, at the close, he sets three survivors on the table like the last three figures standing after everything else has been cleared away. Faith. Hope. Love. Three things that remain. And then he does something almost startling: he ranks them. The greatest of these, he says, is love. Sit with why. Faith will one day become sight, the believing swallowed up in seeing the One believed in. Hope will be swallowed up in having, every longing finally answered. But love does not get retired when the others are fulfilled. Love simply goes on, into the life of the world to come, the one thing that outlasts even faith and hope themselves. Colossians reaches for a different picture, a wardrobe: put on love over everything else, it says, the outer garment that holds the whole outfit together.
“Now remain faith, hope, and love, these three. The greatest of these is love.”
— Paul, to the Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 13:13 (WEB)
“Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.”
Reorientation comes to rest on its true center, and the center is love. Watch Paul end the great poem by ranking three survivors and crowning the last: faith becomes sight, hope is fulfilled, but love goes on. This phase is not finally about arriving at the right answers; it is about a rebuilt life ordered around love, the one thing that outlasts every conviction and holds the whole reconstructed self together.
After all the rebuilding, the recovered beliefs, the hard-won hope, the slow relearning of how to trust, reorientation comes finally to rest on the one thing that outlasts the rest. Faith will one day turn to sight, the believing swallowed up in seeing the One believed in; hope will be swallowed up in having, every longing answered; but love simply goes on, into the life of the world to come. Paul ranks it greatest of the three, and Colossians says to pull it on over everything else like a coat. Here is the warning hidden in the comfort. It is dangerously possible to rebuild a faith centered on being right, on having finally sorted out the correct positions, on winning the argument you lost in your old life.
A reconstructed certainty can be a hard and loveless thing. Do not let the center of your rebuilt life be rightness. You can be right about a great many things and still have missed the very center, because love is what remains, and love is what was greatest all along, even when you were too busy being correct to notice.
The Church can prize correct doctrine or vibrant hope and quietly demote love to an afterthought, even a casualty, and the history of Christianity is scarred where it has done exactly that, right in its convictions and empty of charity. Paul will not allow it for the whole Body: of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love, the one that does not get retired when the others are fulfilled but goes on into the life of the world to come. The reformations and renewals that endured put love on over everything, letting it be the bond that holds the rest together. Before a watching world a Church right about everything yet loveless has missed the very center, for love is what remains, and what was always greatest.
Beliefs will be confirmed and longings answered, and even faith and hope will one day have done their work. What cannot be shaken is love, the survivor of the three, the one thing that does not get retired when the others are fulfilled but simply goes on into the life of the world to come.
- Have I rebuilt a faith centered on being right rather than on love?
- If faith becomes sight and hope is fulfilled, what would it mean to live now for the love that outlasts them?
- Where am I winning arguments while quietly losing the very thing Paul calls greatest?
Lord, I have worked hard to rebuild, and somewhere along the way I began to prize being right more than loving well. Forgive me. Faith will become sight and hope will be fulfilled, but love goes on, and love is what You call greatest. Make it the center of my rebuilt life. Help me put it on over everything else, until it is the thing that remains in me. Amen.