Nothing done in love is ever wasted

At the end of his great chapter on the Resurrection, Paul draws his final conclusion from the great fact of the Resurrection of Jesus:

'Therefore my dear brothers and sisters', he says, 'stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain' (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Or as Mother Teresa often used to put it, 'Nothing done in love is ever lost.'

But that is only true if there is going to be a resurrection. It is not true otherwise. All sorts of things done in love are lost, all sorts of loving actions fail to achieve what we want them to achieve. Only the Resurrection guarantees the truth of what she says there. It is only true if the fragments of our lives and of our bodies is gathered up so nothing be lost, like the bits of bread and fish after the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:12).

The Globe Theatre in London is a reconstruction, as accurate as they could make it, of Shakespeare's theatre. The paving slabs on the floor outside the theatre have names on them. When they were trying to raise money to put up this remarkable edifice, people could have their names chiselled on the paving slabs in exchange for a tidy sum. A number of cathedrals do the same. So you can go to the building you have helped to put up, when it is finally done, and see your contribution embedded in the beauty of the building.

So it will be with the Resurrection. All the things that we do, all the work that we do for the Kingdom, every loving act, every right choice, every sacrificial deed is going to be there, as part of that rebuilt cosmos.

Nothing is going to be left behind. Nothing is going to be wasted. Even if that work has not proved 'successful' in this life, it's still going to be taken up in some way into the new creation. It's not going to be lost. It's not going to be left behind. It's going to be there making its mark in the renewed and restored creation.

We don't bring about the Resurrection: God does. But when He does, all that we are and all that we have done that is not incompatible with the Kingdom of God will be there, shot through with the love and the glory of God.

A while ago, there was a programme on the radio about a community of nuns that was dwindling in number and slowly dying out. Some of the nuns were interviewed and asked the predictable question, 'How do you feel about the death of the Order?'

And they replied, 'Well, when the last one of us dies, the work will be complete. Maybe it has served its purpose in the providence of God.'

They seemed to have no sense that because the work was coming to an end, their contribution had therefore been in vain.

On the contrary, they seemed to have learned the lesson of the Resurrection, that their work in the Lord could never be in vain, however finite and futile it might appear.