The theme of love has been associated with the Lord's Supper down through the centuries.
The early Christians had what came to be known as an Agape feast before they partook of
the Lord's Supper. This was a time in which they ate a full meal together in an atmosphere
of Christian fellowship. It was a great contrast to the pagan parties which were held on
behalf of false gods. Most of the Corinthian Christians had been involved in this corrupt
pagan celebrations before their conversion, and some of the self-centeredness of those began
to creep into the love feasts of the church. The result was that the outgoing concern for
others in agape love faded, and eros love came in, which is a love that is more concerned
about self and what pleasure it can get at the expense of others.
It was a constant battle to keep the love feast a time of true Christian fellowship. After
New Testament days the church changed the feast and held it after the Lord's Supper, but
there was still problems of corruption. In times of persecution the agape meal was had in
prisons with condemned Christians before they were martyred. It soon became a custom to
have a love meal after weddings and funerals, and so our modern days receptions after such
events are nothing new in the church. During the Middle Ages, however, the practice
became so corrupted by non-Christian influence that the Council of Trullan in 692 A. D.
ruled that those who held love feasts in the church should be excommunicated.
The agape feast is still practiced in the Eastern Church just as it was in New Testament
days. A small group in England called the Peculiar People also have the love feast. They
demonstrate that the practice does not have to be corrupt. The only trace of the idea left in
most churches today is the practice of taking a benevolent offering after the Lord's Supper
to be used to help the needy. The result is that few people today connect love with the Lord's
Supper. It is appropriate, however, to consider the theme of love before we commune with
the Lord of love. We want to focus our attention on the attributes of love that are first
mentioned, and they are patience and kindness.
I. LOVE IS PATIENT.
Patience is the first attribute that Paul mentions, for this is essential in all the
relationships of life. If God was not patient, He would have destroyed the earth long ago,
and there would be no plan of salvation. But God is love, and His love is patient, not willing
that any should perish but that all come to repentance. God is exceedingly patient with
people. Jonah even became angry at God when He did not destroy Nineveh but forgave
them, and gave them a second chance when they repented. God is patient because He is love,
and if the love of God is in us, we too will be patient with people.
This means that we must have the capacity to forgive. This word always means patience
with people, and not just with circumstances. In verse 7 Paul deals with enduring all things,
but here at the start he puts first things first and says that the first attribute of agape love is
the ability to be patient and forgiving of people. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "He who is
devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." The Corinthians desperately
needed to learn this, for there were weak Christians and proud Christians, and Christians of
every type of personality all mixed together with different convictions and likes. If there is
no patience in such an atmosphere, there is bound to be trouble, and there was. Some were
of Paul, others of Apolos, and others of Cephus. At their love feast some would have steak,
and others would have just vegetables. The rich would not share with the poor. Some ate
meat offered to idols, and others thought it was a sin.
The church has the hardest task in the world. It has to take people of all walks of life with
endless differences in background, convictions, and personalities, and unite them in one
unified mission of extending the kingdom of God on earth. The task is not difficult, it is
impossible unless the unifying power of agape love is present, only agape love can bear
patiently the conflicts in human personalities. Someone said, "To live above with the saints
we love, Oh that will be glory! But to live below with the saints we know-that's another
story."
It is the basic ingredient in the unity of every church. In any church business meeting you
will find differing opinions and convictions. In any group of Christians you will find varying
viewpoints on many practical issues, and how to deal with them. If the patience of agape love
is not present the result will be division and conflict which is neither for the glory of God nor
the good of man. If love does not reign in the church, it ceases to be the light of the world
and, as one has said, "Only adds deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." Love
alone can dissolve the clouds of darkness and let the light of God shines through.
Abraham Lincoln had a bitter enemy when he was seeking to become President of the
United States. Stanton was his name, and for some reason he hated Lincoln. He did
everything possible to degrade him in the eyes of the public. He use to call Lincoln, "The
original gorilla." On one occasion he said that a certain Frenchman was a fool to be
wandering about in Africa trying to capture a gorilla when he could find one so easy in
Springfield, Ill. In spite of Stanton, Lincoln was elected. Lincoln ten began to select his
cabinet of men to work close to him, and the man he chose to be his Secretary of War was a
shock to everyone, for it was none other than Stanton. His advisors warned him, but Lincoln,
knowing all the things he had said about him, still felt he was the best man for the job, and so
he was appointed.
Such an act of love, forgiveness and patience in the face of hate made Stanton a great
servant of his country, and a great friend of Lincoln. When Lincoln's body was laid in a little
room after he was shot, it was Stanton who stood over him and said through tears, "There
lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen." Maybe not all felt like Stanton, but
then not all men experienced the power of Lincoln's longsuffering love. Likewise, only as we
recognize the longsuffering love of God for us can we be patient with others. It was while we
were yet sinners that Christ died for us. It was while all the hate of sin was being poured out
on Him that He said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Only after we
have entered into, and experienced that forgiveness, can we forgive those who trespass
against us.
That is why love is linked so closely to the Lord's Supper, for it is our remembrance of
His longsuffering love that endured even the death of the cross that keeps us conscious of
our obligation to be patient with all others for whom He died. It is this attribute of patience
that enables us to love even our enemies as God loves His. The Christian destroys his
enemies by making them his friends, even as Lincoln did with Stanton.
Longsuffering agape love is the basis on which Martin Luther King Jr. waged his war
against those who hated the blacks. He demonstrated in an historical crisis that love can
conquer hate. Here is a paragraph from his book titled Strength To Love.
"To our most bitter opponents we say: We shall match your
capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure
suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force.
Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We
cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because
non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is
cooperation with good.
Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes
and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of
violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we
shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.
One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart
and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double
victory."
The wicked weeds of hate and prejudice will eventually wither in the brilliant light and
blazing heat of such longsuffering love. Little did a young lady in England many years ago
realize how important longsuffering love is in teaching Sunday School. She had a class of 4
ragged boys, and they seem to be hopeless, and especially Bob. It was a struggle just to keep
him coming. The Sunday School superintendent gave him a new suit of clothes so he would
not feel out of place, but after a couple of Sundays he was gone again. The teacher went after
him and found the clothes all torn and dirty. She invited him back and he came. The
superintendent gave him another suit of clothes, but after a week or so his seat was empty
again.
The teacher was so aggravated when she found him again and the clothes were a mess.
She reported to the superintendent that she was utterly discouraged and felt she must give
him up as hopeless. He asked her to give him one more chance, and he gave more clothes to
him if he would promise to attend regularly. Bob promised, and he was won by this
persistent effort. Later he accepted Christ as Savior and went on to study for the ministry.
He became the famous Dr. Robert Morrison. He became a missionary to China, and he
translated the Bible into the Chinese language. Agape love never fails because it never
admits defeat. Longsuffering love found a way to redeem my soul, and it will find a way for
me to bear with those who aggravate and discourage. He loves us with patience at our slow
growth in grace, and we must pass on to others this same patient love.
Sometimes people are melted into one by the fires of affliction. We see this in the classic
musical tragedy set in South Africa called Lost In The Stars. The moment of anguish has
arrived. The white son is dead, and the black son is about to be executed for his death. The
two grieving fathers are together, for they have worked through their grief and bitterness
together, and in spite of the calamity that has fallen upon them they come to this moment
with something beautiful as the black father, whose son is about to die, says, "I have a
friend," and the white father, whose son is already dead, responds, "I have a friend."
It is one of the great paradoxes of history that people you suffer with you get to know
quickly, and you tend to care about more deeply. Suffering produces an atmosphere
conducive to love. Anyone who has ever had a loved one go into the hospital with a crisis,
and who has sat with others in an intensive care unit room knows the truth of what I am
saying. Suffering brings people together. It breaks down walls, and people who are total
strangers become like family over-night. People can instantly identify with others in their
common bond of suffering, and so they have a oneness built into their relationship however
diverse they might be apart from their suffering.
There is a clear cut relationship between suffering and love. This is a side of love that we
seldom explore. It is like the dark side of the moon. We prefer the light side of love, and so
we tend to conclude that love always feels good, but when we probe deeper we discover that
sometimes love hurts. If God would have been guided by the principle that if it feels good
do it, do you think there would have been a cross? God so loved He gave His only Son, and
that gift linked together forever the bond of love and suffering. For it was the greatest love
ever expressed, and it was expressed by the greatest suffering ever experienced. The cross
brings these two together and shouts the message down the corridors of time so that we
cannot escape it-love can hurt! We like the love can help message, and the love can heal
message, and the love can give hope message, but we prefer to listen less intently, if at all, to
the message that love can hurt.
Longsuffering means to suffer long, and to put up with what you do not enjoy. You do
not have to be patient and endure pleasure. It is pain that you have to endure. It is irritation
that you have to patient with. Longsuffering is that aspect of love that enables it to relate to
a fallen and imperfect world. It is that part of love that can hurt and not cease to care
because of the hurt. Eros love only functions as long as there is pleasure. It cannot survive
pain. It ceases to exist when it has to endure. Those who love only on this level are totally
self-centered, and do all they can to avoid pain. Did it hurt God to love man? Yes! Did it
hurt Jesus to love man? Yes! The cross is the answer. Yes it hurt, and all love that is truly
of God will be willing to hurt. It does not hurt all the time, however, for Jesus was not always
a man of sorrow. He was not so until the end of His earthly life, and He never will be again
for all eternity. His love just had to hurt until His purpose was accomplished.
Any love that ceases to be when it costs pain is not agape love. It is pure self-centered
love which says I love me, and like you, for you make me feel good. When you cease to make
me feel good, I don't like you anymore. This is the love that leads to the weak commitments
of our day in all realms of life. Agape love says that even when it hurts to love you, and even
when it costs me pain, I will be loyal to you. This is the love that is the fruit of the Spirit.
The essence of this love is the being willing to suffer for and with another.
II. LOVE IS KIND.
Love does not just patiently put up with people. It also positively puts out for people. In
other words, it is not enough to just turn the other cheek. You must also walk the extra mile.
Agape love is not satisfied with the avoiding harm to people. It must also desire to be of help
to people. The Roman Stoics had a longsuffering patience that enabled them to avoid getting
angry if someone aggravated or injured them, but the emotion of sympathy and kindness
which would motivate them to help others was absent.
The Christian has a motivating factor in his life that no one else has. He has experienced
the kindness of God's love, and so by God's grace he is able to express that kindness to
others. We must always remember that agape love is not automatic. It operates only when
we consciously will to allow the love of God to flow through us. That is why Paul can write in
Eph. 4:31-32, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away
from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another,
as God in Christ forgave you. When we remember what Christ did for us, let us also
remember what He expects us to do for others. He expects us to love with the kindness of
His love, and His loving kindness is supreme. Jesus said that if we love even our enemies our
reward will be great, and we will be sons of the Most High, "For He is kind to the ungrateful
and the selfish." (Luke 6:35).
Why does God love His enemies, and why is He kind? Paul tells us in Rom. 2:4, "Do you
not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance." God's kindness is not to
encourage His enemies, but to erase them by making them sons through repentance and
acceptance of Christ. So we are to be kind to all men that we too might destroy our enemies
by making them friends, and part of the family of God. God grant that we will be able to give
the testimony of Lord Shaftesbury who said, "During a long life I have proved that not one
kind word ever spoken, not kind deed ever done, but sooner or later returns to bless the
giver and become a chain binding men with golden bands to the throne of God."
There is real danger in a sermon like this. It is so easy for people to think of it as a mere
moralistic message. He has told us what all good people already know-that we should be
patient and kind. The same counsel can be gotten from a Buddhist priest, a Christian
Scientist, a PTA lecture, or a government pamphlet on social adjustment. That which
makes it a distinctively Christian message is agape love. Only those who know the love of
God through Christ can practice this kind of patience. Only those who have been
enlightened by the flame of God's kindness can be kindled with this kindness to others. In
other words, only those who have experienced agape love can express agape love. God so
loved He gave His Son, and only if we have received that gift can we so love.
Sometimes people are melted into one by the fires of affliction. We see this in the classic
musical tragedy set in South Africa called Lost In The Stars. The moment of anguish has
arrived. The white son is dead, and the black son is about to be executed for his death. The
two grieving fathers are together, for they have worked through their grief and bitterness
together, and in spite of the calamity that has fallen upon them they come to this moment
with something beautiful as the black father, whose son is about to die, says, "I have a
friend," and the white father, whose son is already dead, responds, "I have a friend."
It is one of the great paradoxes of history that people you suffer with you get to know
quickly, and you tend to care about more deeply. Suffering produces an atmosphere
conducive to love. Anyone who has ever had a loved one go into the hospital with a crisis,
and who has sat with others in an intensive care unit room knows the truth of what I am
saying. Suffering brings people together. It breaks down walls, and people who are total
strangers become like family over-night. People can instantly identify with others in their
common bond of suffering, and so they have a oneness built into their relationship however
diverse they might be apart from their suffering.
