Love like this

There is a passage from the Bible that is frequently used at weddings – anyone who has been to a church wedding is highly likely to have heard it even if they don't normally read the Bible or go to church. It's from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and it goes like this:

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

I was reflecting on the meaning of the passage and it occurred to me that it is an immensely challenging passage. That got me thinking about whether I would want to have it read at my wedding (if the opportunity arises), because I thought it would be a bit like holding a magnifying glass up to your relationship at that most public moment of a declaration and promise of love. It's saying 'this is what love is (or should be) – can you do that?'. But I wonder if people just like the sound of it and feel as if that kind of love is 'the way things are', or that it will happen magically once they are pronounced husband and wife.

How many people could actually say that in their relationships (especially with their spouses/partners) they are always patient and kind, never envious or boastful, arrogant or rude? How many people could say they never insist on getting their own way, or are never irritable or resentful? Rejoicing in wrongdoing, i.e. pointing out the other's faults or mistakes in a kind of pointscoring competition seems to be a socially acceptable way of conducting a relationship (just look at Hollywood depictions of relationships). The fact that many people separate and get divorced shows that not everyone is able to bear, believe, hope and endure all things.

The title of this blog is intended in its clausal sense, as imperative mood 'Love like this!' rather than in its phrasal sense '(a) love [like this] (is...)', and I think that's the tone of the passage too: not merely a description of love, but an exhortation to love like this, with Jesus Christ as the perfect example of love like this.