Love came down at Christmas

By Tyler Tankersley

When I was a kid, my brother and I would fight a lot. They would begin verbally, but we generally would end up on the floor tussling and trying to hit one another. If my father caught us in the midst of one of these brouhahas, he would pull us apart and say, "Hey. You're brothers. Act like it." Dad never had to define for us what it meant to be a brother; we just knew we weren't acting like brothers.

It is in that spirit the apostle Paul wrote the letter we now call 1 Corinthians. The early Christian church in the Greek city of Corinth was a really unhealthy community. From the letter we know that this church had unwise teachers, dysfunctional marriages, a penchant for suing one another, imbalanced worship practices and constant conflict.

That is the turbulent context to which Paul writes these famous words: "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude." (1 Cor. 13:4-5). Most of the time we hear 1 Corinthians 13 it is at weddings. But Paul is not talking about fluffy, romantic love when writing 1 Corinthians 13. He is writing to a church embroiled with conflict. 1 Corinthians 13 is not about love between engaged lovers, and it's not even about the love between God and humanity; 1 Corinthians 13 is about the love that is supposed to exist within a community. Paul is essentially saying: "Hey, you're a church. Act like it."

During the season of Advent, those of us who are Christians spend time waiting for the coming Christ Child. As we wait, we focus on four virtues that will define the kingdom that Jesus will inaugurate in this world: hope, peace, joy and love. As we jump into Christmas this season, let's not forget love is to permeate all that we do.

This is especially true for us who are Christians and belong to a church. Churches can bring out the best and the worst in people. Many, many people have turned away from faith because churches have become places of political scheming, close-minded bigotry and hurtful backbiting. When listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, however, churches can be places that instill a sense of belonging, help people to come to a saving faith, and set them on a path to become who God has called them to be. When churches are at their best, they are laboratories for love.

The love we are called to emulate is not the surface-level kind of love that leads to nowhere. It is the deep, difficult kind of love that reminds us we are committed to peace on earth and goodwill for all humanity. The kind of love we are called to is imbued with patience and kindness. It is the kind of love we see from Jesus.

And that is what we celebrate this season. Immanuel: God with us. Love came down at Christmas.