This is the day after the final oral exam for Year V at the Medical School. For the non Commonwealth people, medical school here starts after an open first year: people are then selected for two years of early learning (ELM), two years of advanced learning (what was called “preclinical” and “clinical” in my day). Then you sit finals. If you pass those, you do a final year as a Trainee Intern on the year, then two years Internship, then get your general registration and start specialist training.

So these exams matter. It is my duty as an examiner to ensure that the people who are not ready to be Trainee Interns don’t pass. Every time we fail someone — and yes, I did fail people yesterday — you feel that you have failed in that these students clearly had the ability to understand the material. They are elite. The cut off mark to get into ELM is around 92%. My son who is doing year one this year says half the people who began the course have dropped out.

And today I am reminded that this does not matter. What matters is love. Our giftedness, our ability, our talents and our wealth will be for nothing if we do not use them to love.

And this begs the question: what is love?

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13 ESV)

What is love: It is choices, made for others. It is putting the best interests of others before yourself. It is remaining continent so your beloved spouse has joy in your passion. It is getting up at two am to care for a sick child. It is comforting the anxious. It is holding your beloved when she has Crossfit Lung. It is hoping and praying for your son’s exam results.

And it is praying for those in your family who have fallen, and hoping they return. It is not accepting their fallen state, but confronting them.

It is the hope that all come to Christ. At this time love is not accepted, because love is telling the truth for their best, and that is called hate speech.

For the passions and issues of this season will pass. The current causes of Hate Speech will fade. The Cadre will grow up, and leave the narrative, when reality hits them.

But Faith, Hope and Love will abide.