Tuesday 14 February

One of my best friends is getting married in a few weeks and we were discussing wedding readings.  She isn’t a Christian but wondered if there was anything suitable from the Bible – I came up with the standards; Corinthians 13, Ruth.  But I feel like there is a deeper story that the Bible tells about love, one that is in these passages but is lost by their familiarity. 

I have another friend who is a marriage celebrant but has been feeling disheartened.  50% of the Christian marriages she has conducted have ended in divorce.  There is something the Bible has to tell us about this too.

It’s Valentines Day.  A day of flowers and chocolates and love and cards from secret admirers.   But there’s a gift we can give the people we love that is even greater than all this, something the Bible has to teach us about.

I didn’t think of it when planning wedding readings with my friend because it’s not one reading – it’s the whole theme of the love of God which we can emulate in the way we love people.  Joseph and his brothers, I think, give us this deeper story of love.  Joseph’s brothers despised him – their relationship broke down to a point it seemed that there was no repair, they harmed him and abandoned him.  Joseph had every reason to respond in kind the next time he saw them.  But instead, this is what happened (as found in Genesis 45);

“Joseph could stand it no longer. There were many people in the room, and he said to his attendants, “Out, all of you!” So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. Then he broke down and wept. He wept so loudly the Egyptians could hear him, and word of it quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace…Weeping with joy, he embraced Benjamin, and Benjamin did the same. Then Joseph kissed each of his brothers and wept over them, and after that they began talking freely with him.”

-       Genesis 45 v 1 – 2 & 14 -15

Joseph gave the gift of love undeserved.  He gave the gift of forgiveness.  Of tenderness, vulnerability, of reaching out first.  It is easy to say ‘oh yes, but you don’t know my situation.’  And I don’t.  But I know mine.  God gave me the gift of love undeserved.  God gave me the gift of forgiveness.  Of tenderness, vulnerability, of reaching out first.  And these gifts have been more meaningful, more life changing, more sustaining then any other.  And they’re the gift I want to give to my marriage, this valentines day and every day.  It is this that gives my choice to love true meaning…and that which sustains it.