Love letter

1 Thessalonians 3:6-13New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us—just as we long to see you. For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

For all that they are in our Holy scriptures, it is important to remember that the letters of Paul - and of the writers of other epistles - were just that.  Letters.

We don't write letters much anymore, but can you remember a time looking forward to the mailman coming because you knew that any day a letter would be coming to you? 

Maybe it was a love-letter.  Maybe it was a letter from grandparents or a thank you letter.  Maybe it was a letter from a child at camp or college.

There's really no feeling like it.  Getting that envelope and tearing it open to read the thoughts and sentiments of a loved one.

So imagine how much meaning these letters from Paul to his churches had.  You can hear the longing and emotion in Paul's words.  This is his community of people.  It is, in fact, a NEW community of people.  This is a church existing at the very birth of Christianity.  It is a church that is doing something that's never been done before.

And Paul, their founder, isn't even with them for it.  (Imagine our pastors today setting us off on our own while they lead us and communicate to us from hundreds of miles away).

This is a unprecedented letter.  It will caution and guide.  It will explain and exhort.

But most of all it is a letter of love. Paul is writing to a community built around and bound by the love of Christ.

That love is still what binds our church.  Maybe sometimes it seems hard to see it.  Maybe the newness and shine has worn off, and we don't feel the excitement that that early church must have felt.

But it is still there.  Christ's love moving us forward.  

How can we communicate that to each other and to the world?

Lord of love, move our hearts to love as deeply and abundantly as you do.  Amen.