Quinquagesima
Dear friends in Christ. Yesterday, St. Valentine’s Day, was a day filled with kitsch and sentimentality; idealized notions of romantic love; jewelry stores seeing it as a bridge between Christmas and Mothers’ Day; and candy makers able to make a profit between Christmas and Easter. And now we have as the appointed Epistle, St. Paul’s great hymn of praise of love. It all seems so fortuitous—it can be a whole weekend with the theme of love. But before we get too excited, it will do good to remember to remember precisely who St. Valentine is. Although there is much that is shrouded in the vagaries of ancient history, our synod’s Commission on Worship informs us that St. Valentine is a martyr—one who died on account of his confession of faith in Jesus. Valentine was a physician and priest living in Rome. The commemoration of his death in the year 270 became part of the calendar of remembrance in the early church in the West. Tradition suggests that on the day of his execution for his Christian faith, he left a note of encouragement for a child of his jailer written on an irregularly-shaped piece of paper. This greeting became a pattern for millions of written expressions of love and caring that now are the highlight of St. Valentine’s Day in many nations.
Really, then, St. Valentine’s Day truly is a day of love—not this drippy sentimental, idealized romantic notion of love that has taken hold, love that focuses on self—how that person “makes me feel,” love in an idealized setting—but of true love—a love focused on the other, lived out in real day-in/ day-out world full of sin. St. Valentine’s love was a love of his Savior, Jesus Christ; it was a love that showed itself to the very end remaining faithful to Christ; it was a love that was grounded on Jesus and His saving work—His love for us first and that means that it was a love that was the fruit/ result of faith; and this faith showed itself in love—in love of the neighbor that led St. Valentine, in prison facing death, to leave a note of encouragement to the child of his jailer. Real love in the real world of sin!
Now why is today’s Epistle, St. Paul’s great hymn of praise of love? Well, it does flow nicely from the traditional account of St. Valentine—his faith leading him into love of both God and his neighbor. But that’s not the reason, because it is only rarely that this Sunday of Quinquagesima falls on or even near Valentine’s Day. But the clue of why this Epistle of love has for centuries been appointed for today is because it is Quinquagesima Sunday. Quinquagesima means that there are 50s day until Easter; and in this season that comes before Lent we are preparing ourselves/ strengthening ourselves for the rigors of Lent by looking ahead to Easter—looking to the goal to strengthen us on the journey/ in the race toward the goal. Today, we are strengthened for the rigors of Lent’s call to repentance and the pondering of our Lord’s suffering and death as we focus on love. First, God’s love for us. St. John writes [1 John 4.9-10]: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [that, is the satisfaction for the demands of God’s Law] for our sins. Today, we see love—the love of the Father for us sinners.
In today’s Gospel account, we see the love of the Son, Christ Jesus, who in love for us sinners obeyed His Father’s will and willingly gave up His life for us sinners so that we may be forgiven our sin and reconciled to God and eternal life in heaven be given us. Hear again the beginning of today’s Gospel: And taking the twelve, Jesus said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” In spite of all He would endure—or better put: precisely so He could endure all these things—Jesus went to Jerusalem; He set his face to go to Jerusalem—nothing to stop Him/ to get in His way. Why? Love! Love for us sinners.
Here you see the contrast between the idealized notions of romantic love that we saw/ heard so much about yesterday and that true love of the holy Triune God for us poor, miserable sinners. And it is this love that St. Paul praises in our text because not only is it the love that God Himself shows us but it is also the love that He works in us, His Christians, because He gives us His Holy Spirit.
Today, we briefly examine the verses that tell us what love does and does not do; these verses that give us love’s characteristics: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Hearing that description of love, its characteristics, how different it is from modern notions of so-called “love.” Modern sentimental notions of love often become the excuse for deviations from the will and love of God—“it was done in love!” Answer: So what? What does God say in His word? What passes for “love” in the world is often self-seeking, rooted in the self and its needs and emotions.
How can we hear St. Paul’s description of love and not cringe, not feel ashamed, not feel convicted because we then come face to face with how loveless we really are; how little this true Christian love is part of us; how self-seeking our so-called love really is. Hearing this hymn of praise this way, if we take it seriously, it is really a sharp preaching of law to us. It truly condemns us because we are not as “loving” as we really think, compared to this standard of perfect love.
This is not a call to love but a description of what loves does and is. Here is the call for us to repent of our lovelessness. Who of us loves perfectly? Here is the loud preaching of God’s holy law to us that we do not love perfectly and since we cannot how can we expect to be good enough to enter heaven, to gain heaven by our works? Far from praising love as such a great virtue—which it is—shouldn’t we hide from it; after all, it will only condemn us because we don’t and can’t do it.
But no! St. Paul praises love; and our joy and comfort here is that although we don’t and can’t love perfectly, Christ has loved and still loves us perfectly—from eternity to eternity. That’s why this text is so vital for us right before we are about to enter Lent. It strengthens us to honestly and sincerely look at our hearts and lives in the mirror of God’s holy Law to recognize, to repent of and to root out sin from our hearts and lives. We need not be afraid to do so, to use Lent rightly, because we are certain of God’s perfect love for us sinners and it is precisely in Lent, as we ponder Jesus’ holy passion, that we see and experience this pure love that St. Paul here praises.
How does St. Paul describe love? Love is patient and kind. What clearer picture/ expression of love do we see than Jesus in Lent? How this description of love fits Jesus to a “T”. To say that Love is patient means that it is long-suffering; it endures unjust treatment. Didn’t we just hear Jesus say about Himself in today’s Gospel: For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him? Jesus willingly endured all that He would suffer for us and our salvation. And why? Love! His perfect love for us! It is patient; it is long-suffering.
Here, too, we experience the love of the Father for us shining forth so beautifully. Because He is love, that is, because love is long-suffering He didn’t just strike us dead the moment of our first sin because then none of us would be here; because even if we had parents, we’d have been killed already in the womb because we are all conceived and born in sin. Instead, in love God is patient with us; He is long-suffering; by our sin He endures unjust treatment as we rebel against His just and holy will. St. Peter writes [2 Peter 3.9]: The Lord…is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Here is our strength for our Lenten repentance—Love is patient; we can be certain the Lord is gracious to us as we repent—as we confess our sins He fully and freely forgives us!
And how/ why can He do this? Love is…kind. That is, the Lord shows kindness. Love is not some “pie-in-the-sky” type notion but is full of useful and beneficial acts. Love gets down and dirty. The love of the holy Triune God got “down and dirty” as the Father sent the Son into this world to become also true man and endure and suffer the worst the devil and world could throw at Him—all for us and our salvation. St. Paul puts it this way in the Christmas epistles [Titus 3.4; 2.11]: The kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared and the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared.
As St. Paul continues in our text, we see that pure, perfect love of Christ was not just a “show” or “sham”; it was not a love in an ideal setting; it was not a greeting card type sentimental love. Instead, Christ showed love, is love, in a world broken and corrupted by sin. His love met opposition. Notice how St. Paul puts it in our text: love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing. Notice all the “nots”. Notice also: Love bears all things. Christ in love for us presses forward to overcome opposition so right and truth triumph. That’s what we’ll hear next Sunday as we hear Jesus being tempted in the wilderness—a picture of how all throughout His earthly ministry He was tempted to sin, tempted to get of the path leading to our salvation. How easy it would have been for Jesus to envy and desire what His enemies had when He was in the midst of His suffering; how He humbly endured all the challenges and opposition to His preaching—even though He confirmed it by pointing to the OT Scriptures and by His miracles. How easy it would have been for Him to be arrogant or rude with His enemies instead of seeking gently and humbly to bring them to the knowledge of the truth!
Jesus certainly did not insist on [His] own way but the very essence of His saving work was, as St. Paul writes elsewhere [Ph. 2.5-9], to take the servant’s form and humble Himself to the point of death—even death on the cross. And what is most glorious, Jesus is not irritable, that is He does not keep track of wrongs—our sins—to pay us back for them. Rather, Jesus is not …resentful, or better translated “thinks no evil” or “does not reckon the evil thing.” That’s forgiveness! Our sins against Him, against the holy Law of God are forgiven us. And they can be because Jesus/ pure love does not insist on its own way but rejoices with the truth. He was concerned for what is right before God and obeyed His holy Law for us; obeyed the will of the Father going to the cross to pay for our sins and to reconcile us sinners to Him.
Jesus could have had all the best intentions but it would have done us no good if He failed in His work to be our Savior. But rejoice, dear Christian, Jesus is that perfect love: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. In perfect love of His Father and for us sinners Jesus suffered and endured all things so that we might have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven.
This same Jesus now dwells in us by faith and by His Holy Spirit leads us in lives of love—that is, of faith and good works. But as we strive to do so, we will fail because we are sinful flesh and blood—that’s what our Lenten repentance will show us. But Jesus is that pure and perfect love—of us sinners—and in that love lived out in this world of sin, He brought us forgiveness of sin and eternal life. Praise be to Him! We are strengthened for Lent because of pure love—Jesus in his Passion. INJ Amen