SUNDAY BEFORE LENT
(Quinquagesima)
Readings:
Key Verses (using the World English Bible):
1 Cor. 13:4a, 7-8a: “Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy… [it] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
Luke 18:31a, 32-33a: Jesus said, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and [the Son of Man] will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on. They will scourge and kill him.”
Reflection
Thanks to a fortuitous synchrony between Sun and Moon, our first reading for this Valentine’s Day weekend is Paul’s famous “ode to love”. I can’t think of a better passage. Most of us have probably heard this at a Christian wedding. A discourse extolling the attributes of love is especially appropriate when two people come together (ideally) in that kind of love. But to fully understand the significance of this “ode”, and apply it to our lives today, we need to examine its two major historical contexts: that is, first, the reason Paul wrote it, and, second, how the Church came to understand it.
Paul was writing to the dysfunctional Church of Corinth, which we touched on last week. He’s in the middle of discussing various spiritual gifts in a way that suggests that these were creating strife and envy among the Corinthians. He argues that, though their God-given gifts may differ, they are all still one in the body of Christ. But it’s more than just “unity in diversity”. They all need each other, just as, in a whole body, the eye needs the hand, or the head needs the feet. They can’t all be an eye, or a hand, or a foot. Therefore, they must resolve their division and jealousy with the “most excellent way” of love. And if they still don’t understand the ultimate plan, that’s okay; when Christ returns, everything will be made clear, “for now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then [we will see] face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully.”
About 500 years later, the Church consistently began to pair Paul’s “ode to love” with today’s Gospel passage, placing both of these on the Sunday before Lent. Their intent is clear. These two readings together set the tone for the fasting season to come. In the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that they are going up to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and be executed. Despite his detailed prediction, “this saying was hidden from them, and they didn’t understand the things that were said.” Immediately following this, a blind man realizes Jesus is passing by. Undaunted and unrestrained, he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus comes near and asks the blind man what he wants, and he asks for his sight, which Jesus restores, saying, “Your faith has healed you.”
Side by side, these two readings weave together a new and complementary narrative, one which I don’t think even the original authors would’ve foreseen, but with which they likely would’ve agreed. The love that Paul describes, the one that “bears all things… endures all things… never fails” is the same love that Jesus showed with his life, and is about to show fully with his death on the cross in Jerusalem. The disciples couldn’t understand the idea of an executed Messiah. With all the turmoil in Judea under Roman oppression, they needed salvation—deliverance—now! They couldn’t see that Jesus came to save people, not from this life, but for this life, and for the life to come. Of course we know that they eventually get it, but this happens only when Jesus comes near, and gives them the eyes, the sight, to see the divine plan.
My friends, Lent starts on Wednesday and, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. We already know what will happen there, but like his twelve disciples, we know only in part. Without firsthand experience, we won’t completely understand the rhyme or reason behind suffering and selfless love—unless Jesus lets us see it; unless he comes to us, like he did to the blind man, and causes us to receive our spiritual sight. In fact, that’s all that Lent really is. The season’s disciplines, rituals, and liturgy are just the Church’s collective way of crying out, “Jesus, you Son of David, have mercy on me!”, collectively because we can’t do it alone; we need each other. Only God’s mercy can let us see, face to face, to the kind of love that is patient, kind, and never-failing. And only God’s grace can let us know it fully.
Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia!
Prayer of the Day
O Lord,
you have taught us that all our doings
are worth nothing without love.
Send us your Holy Spirit,
and pour into our hearts
that most excellent gift of love,
the very bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever is alive
is counted as dead before you.
Grant this for the sake of your only Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
—Collect for the Sunday before Lent (Quinquagesima), Book of Common Prayer, 1662
Hymn: “Songs of thankfulness and praise”
(Words: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-1885, with stanza 4 by Bland Tucker, 1895-1984; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015
Tune: ‘Salzburg’, melody by Jakob Hintze, 1622-1702; harmony by Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750)
Songs of thankfulness and praise,
Jesus, Lord, to you we raise,
Manifested by the star
To the sages from afar.
Branch of royal David’s stem
In your birth at Bethlehem,
Anthems be to you addressed,
God-With-Us made manifest.*
Manifest at Jordan’s stream,
Prophet, Priest, and King supreme,
And at Cana, wedding-guest,
In your Godhead manifest;
Manifest in power divine,
Changing water into wine,
Anthems be to you addressed,
God-With-Us made manifest.*
Manifest in making whole
Palsied limbs and fainting soul;
Manifest in valiant fight,
Quelling all the devil’s might;
Manifest in gracious will,
Ever bringing good from ill;
Anthems be to you addressed,
God-With-Us made manifest.*
Manifest on mountain height,
Shining in resplendent light,
Where disciples, filled with awe,
Your transfigured glory saw;
From the mountain you led them
Steadfast to Jerusalem,
Cross and Easter Day attest
God-With-Us made manifest.*
Grant us grace to see you, Lord,
Mirrored in your holy word.
May we follow now your ways,
Pure and holy all our days,
That like you we all may be
At your great epiphany,
Praising you, forever blest,
God-With-Us made manifest.*
*Or, “God in man made manifest.”
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