March 23, 2010

1 Peter 4

"Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins."

It was worth reading the whole book - full of advice and proscriptions and setting up a New Law and a lot of things that play into the now outdated societal structure like slaves and "weaker sex" talk - for that one verse. And heaven knows it's true. Our own and others.

All these rules, all this advice, it boils down to that, and it is, at the same time, an answer for the times that we fail. I can't say it better than that - I can't say anything as good as that.

I feel, sitting here at my laptop, as if I could go on and on talking about that verse, but all the swirling things I think and feel about it refuse to go into words, because those words are not nearly as clear or beautiful or precise as the ones above.

It's the answer to "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Thinking we know better is different than this, of course, this is about loving our fellow man and our God with all of our hearts, basing our lives on this. That covers a multitude of human flaws, the willing spirit and the weak flesh brought together in love for fellow man. The willing spirit saving the weak flesh by reaching out through love.

And, leaving the focus on saving ourselves, the ways in which our world has been torn wide open can be slowly healed by the love we show each other. That is how we dare to stand before God, together and strong in our love. That is how we bring the Kingdom of God to Earth - going behind the terrible evil that strikes out and sweeping forces of violence and darkness that rampage across our Fallen World, finding the beauty and repairing the damage done to the Chosen of God, on our beautiful Earth.

With our love, we cover a multitude of our terrible sins, as a race, as a people. We take its victims into our hearts, and we slowly redeem our people, our species, our world. Cloaked in our love, we dare to stand before God and claim to be His people.

And the most beautiful iteration of all is the first, our Prime Example. His Love cover all our multitude of sins.