Let us pray: Take my words, O God and make them yours, that they may tell of your power and presence in our lives. Amen.

Let's play a little Jeopardy. Get ready to buzz in (where buzzing is defined as “raising your hand”): The category is “Phrase Finishers” and the answer is the phrase that gives title to this reflection: And the Greatest of These. Doesn't anyone want to take a stab at it? No prize money, and I can't even promise that your reward will be in heaven! But of course, the question is: What is love?

What is love indeed! Perhaps the question that has inspired more reflection, song writing, poetry, schmalzy and deeply touching movies, and everything from comic strips to abstract and large theological tomes. A case could be made that love is the central theme of human interaction and relationship.

It can be extremely easy to identify and terribly difficult to describe.

Part of the difficulty is our language. Just as I described a couple of weeks ago at this point in the worship service with the word “peace”, English can be an impediment to our understanding. It is befuddling that the English language with by far the largest number of words in its lexicon could also be a language which leaves some concepts difficult to define. I guess if we took all the words and characteristics that have been ascribed to the concept of “love” in the English language we might have a reasonably good idea of just what “love” means, but when the most common way of expressing all this is tied up with this other candidate for a phrase to be finished: “I love _____” and you can fill in the blank as you will. It could be “you”, or “pizza”, or “Saturday mornings”, or “doing woodwork”, or “God”, or “my kids” and you could add any other number of phrase finishers of your own, and know that they all express slightly different aspects of that one word “love”. You don't love pizza in the same way as you love your kids. You don't love God in the same way that you love your partner, or do you? A theme that comes up sometimes in marriage preparation is the sense that love of God helps us to understand love of others, especially in the love shared by marriage partners. But we know that “love” of partner” is usually different from “love of neighbour” - unless someone interesting moves next door!

Well, this exploration into the word and concept “love” is sparked by the fact that this Sunday in the church year, in the season of Advent is “love” Sunday. Our worship began with the lighting of the fourth and final candle in our Advent circle – the wreath, with only one central candle remaining to shed light.

In preceding weeks we have reflected on hope, peace, and joy – as both the promises and the expectations of the season – all signs of and goals of our advent preparations and the deepening of our spiritual lives.

Many of you will know that I was active doing something different between the first of August and the end of November. What I learned and explored in those four months has helped me to focus my vision through a lens that was perhaps there all the time, but which by my own choice and some of the sights that I viewed through it, became more clear. There's an interesting thing that happens when one chooses to regard this complex and multiply connected world through a particular lens. Things that have been fuzzy and unfocussed in other views, suddenly become very clear and focussed, casting and gathering light in ways that create a revelation.

Have you ever looked through a long telephoto lens on a single lens reflex camera, or had the opportunity to look through powerful binoculars or a telescope and see how turning the focussing ring can bring distant objects into clear view, while objects in the foreground and background fade into a mottled obscurity?

That's kind of how I describe what happened for me. Not only does it bring things into different focus, but it helps make connections between concepts and ideas that might perviously have seemed completely unconnected.

Let me tell you of one such connection that happened this week, and how it also became a connection to this week in the church year.

Donald Ervin Knuth, by all accounts, is a brilliant man. I've never met him, but I've known about him since early in my undergraduate education. Early in the developing field of study called Computer Science, Don Knuth wrote the first volume of what would be a more than forty year endeavour. The Art of Computer Programming has been considered the bible for anyone involved in writing computer code. Since the late 60's Knuth has continued to work on what is now a four volume set, with the latest contributions in both additions and improvements having occurred as recently as 2011 when Knuth was seventy-three years old.

This diversion about Don Knuth would all seem strange except for a discovery I made this week, and other discoveries I made during my four month sabbatical. I saw some reference to Don Knuth in one of the news portals that are part of my internet home page. As often happens, that little mention led to a web surfing deviation, as I once again looked him up – on Wkipedia, his own web page, and any number of other places where his name is mentioned. There was a big party for him when he turned seventy, four years ago. In theological circles this would be called a festschrift – as former students and colleagues gathered to celebrate in a kind of wonderful mix of roast and celebration – presenting papers that built on his work, or found birth in his research and writing. That led to more links and an affirmation of something I discovered a couple of months ago, that besides being probably the world's leading guru on computer algorithms, he is also a deeply religious man. As his name would suggest, Scandinavian in origin, he is a practising Lutheran, and if you go and take a look at his web site, you will see that he has a list of lectures that he has scheduled. Dotted throughout those lectures you will find a curious set that have nothing to do with computer programming or computer science. You will also see that he is an accomplished organist who can be found giving recitals from time to time. However, those other lectures that I refer to are described this way: Informal discussion of the Bible verse 1 Samuel 3:16, Informal discussion of the Bible verse: Zephaniah 3:16; Informal discussion of the Bible verse: Acts 3:16; Informal discussion of the Bible verse 1 John 3:16. Well perhaps you are picking up a pattern, what could be considered the holy grail of computer programming. If you can find a pattern then writing code is much easier. Obviously Knuth has taken the bible verse most often seen referred to in public John 3:16 and has applied it to all the other books of the bible. I sure would like to sit in on some of those discussions as a brilliant mathematical, pattern finding, algorithm generating, musical mind, went to work on that one verse from each of the books of the bible.

Maybe you are still wondering about the connection? Well, as I mentioned, this series of 3:16 discussions was no doubt sparked by the most common public reference to a Bible verse – you know the one you can often be seen being held up by a cardboard toting spectator at a sporting event – John 3:16. And what is that passage: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son...

Well do you notice the connection? For God so “loved” the world. For many people that particular verse is the kernel, the clearest summary verse of the Christian faith, speaking as it does of God's love. I, myself, would choose a different one, but it cannot be denied how important that verse is to so many people. And if you consider it from a slightly broader perspective than I think is intended by many of the people who consider it so important, it has some interesting things to say to us. I think most people who name it as their kernel verse would want to emphasise the personal salvation and personal relationship aspect, but let us consider for a moment what it means to say that God loves “the world”? Is that not a call to as our creed says “live with respect in creation”. Is it not just about personal relationship with God, but personal relationship with all creation.

That's the message I hope we could take from this Sunday in the church year – this Sunday of “love”, this Sunday when we consider all the aspects of love as we understand them and as we continue to learn about them in our life on earth. What does it mean to love God and how does love of other people and other things contribute to our understand of loving and being loved by God.

I want to conclude with one other insight. As I considered the world from the point of view of doing and studying a subject that I love (there's that word again) I also found myself in the presence of other people who are doing something they love. Donald Knuth – working well and brilliantly beyond his retirement – is obviously doing something he loves.

Doing well what we love to do – what we do for fun, for enjoyment, for the sense of accomplishment, to contribute to the common good, is obviously a way of bringing praise to God our maker, and a way of telling of our love for God and our love for the creativity that God has placed within us. Thanks be to God – for the love that comes to us always and most especially in these poignant and meaningful days leading to Christmas. Amen.