“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” I Corinthians 13:8-13) I admit I’ve done it and my guess is that most of the preachers reading this have as well.  We’ve preached this text at a wedding.  Perfect setting it would seem, since it is all about the quality of love.  However, it is important to recall that this follows directly on the last chapter wherein the Apostle is pleading with the Corinthians to get along, to love each other.  So, these words were first written to people who did not really like each other let alone being madly in love with one another.  With that in mind, we come to the chapter’s powerful conclusion about love’s eternal nature and our knowing and being known.  In their anger and disagreement, the Corinthian Christians had lost the capacity to recognize each other as brothers and sisters, as fellow members of Christ’s body.  Paul is reminding them and us that absent love it becomes impossible to know people.  To understand another human being we must care about him or her; we must value him or her, we must love them.  Absent love, our vision darkens but with love we behold the other with a foretaste of the heavenly vision.  So how do we love those with whom we disagree?  Go back a chapter; we are united to Christ who is our head.  As you may recall, the head has the only eyes in the body, so in order to see clearly, we must do so with his eyes, with his vision of the other.  Those loving eyes are willing to do the looking for us, if we will let them.  Are you having trouble loving someone right now?  Have you considered our Lord’s beautiful eyes that see everyone even as they sees you and me, with unending love and mercy?  Have a great week!