Much will be said in regards to the meaning of love tomorrow…on many sides of the spectrum. There are a number of early Christian saints who are credited as focal points of this annual celebration. For centuries…and lots of ‘em…legend has been accepted as fact relative to this notorious and celebrated holiday.

But for the past 7-8 centuries, this annual celebration has evolved into an association with romantic love thanks to people like Geoffrey Chaucer and others. By the 1400s, the holiday had transitioned to a celebration by romantic lovers to express love for one another – by flowers, food, and greeting cards, etc. With the invention of the printing press, the 19th century saw the tradition of handwritten valentines give way to mass-produced cards.

Now the celebration of romantic love is great…for those who have it. For those who don’t, or who are missing out at the present time for any number of reasons, it can be a difficult day for certain. But this celebration wasn’t initiated as a celebration of romantic love.

(Jaw Drop)

That’s right…this certainly isn’t one of those “Hallmark Holidays” we all like to complain about. Sure…you’ll be in trouble if you don’t do something special for your sweetie, but peel back the layers a bit and get a better understanding of what this “holiday” is about.

For those who saw the title of tonight’s note and thought of the old Saturday Night Live skit “The Roxbury Guys”, sorry to disappoint. This one is about something a little different. Just as there’s more to the story about Valentine’s Day, there’s much more to our four-letter word that begins with an “L”.

The Rest of the Story

I won’t bore you with too many details but the subject I’m exploring a little deeper is the legend behind Valentine of Rome, a priest near Rome in somewhere around 270AD. At the time, the church and its followers were under tremendous persecution. Valentine’s ministry was to help Christians escape persecution and provide them simple services such as marriage, which was outlawed by the Roman Empire at that time. (Interesting side note – it is not lost on me that we have a government system in place almost 2 millennia later toiling with the same issues…and last I checked, the Roman Empire exists no longer). Anyway, Valentine wasn’t really making government officials all that happy and Roman Emperor Claudius II had him tracked down. As legend goes, Claudius interrogated Valentine himself, and was quite impressed with him. In fact, Claudius tried to convert Valentine to paganism in order to save his own life…Valentine would not relent and in fact, tried to convert Claudius to Christianity in that same interrogation. Claudius ordered Valentine’s execution, but before it was carried out, Valentine (again, according to legend) miraculously healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. The jailer’s daughter, and his 44-member household came to believe in Jesus and were baptized.

In keeping with a tradition he’d started long ago, where Saint Valentine would cut hearts from parchment and give them to both soldiers and persecuted Christians to remind them of God’s love; Valentine, on the evening before his execution, cut out his last paper heart…addressed it to the jailer’s daughter and signed it “Your Valentine.”

This was not a romantic expression by any means. No…this was a much broader love.

A Common Misconception

I believe my brother will appreciate what I’m about to say, as it was a discussion with him one time where I came to understand a section of the Bible in a much broader sense. I will have poor recollection of the exact facts and words he used, but it has always stuck in my head that he claimed 1 Corinthians 13 (aka the “Love” chapter) was one of the most overused and misunderstood passages in the Bible.

It is often the subject of readings at weddings and quoted on many a Valentine’s Day cards. Yet, the subject behind the writing of 1 Corinthians, and especially the 13th chapter, was not related to romantic love…nope…not really.

Corinth was a melting pot of nationalities – much of the trade between Asia and Europe passed through its harbors. As such, there were even more vast perspectives of the church and how it should operate than what would normally exist in a church unaffected by such influences. These perspectives were causing divisions in the church and Paul wrote the letter to address and correct the errors to which he’d been made aware. Paul offers ways to fix these errors and does so in a way not to shame the Corinthians, but to support them.

1 Corinthians 13 was written to speak on how Christians ought to love one another, and how that love ought not just be brother to brother, but passed along to anyone whom a person might come into contact. Here is the entire text of 1 Corinthians 13 according to the New International Version:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Tying it together

Seeing it from this perspective, it is not difficult to see why this is much more than a romantic love. It is the very foundation of love that we are to have for all people. Go back to the story of the very Saint to which this holiday is attributed. Was it not this foundation to which he gave his life? He persevered…to say the least. He offered the marriage sacrament for those who thought it was important, going against the very powerful emperor who outlawed it simply because he thought married men made for weaker soldiers! Valentine of Rome lost his life for his beliefs even though he was given a chance to relent if he only chose another path. And with the stress of his pending doom certainly weighing upon him, what did he do? He gave his jailer’s daughter her eyesight, converted her 40+ member household of family members and servants, and cut out his last paper heart to remind her, as he had every soldier and persecuted Christian to whom he’d ministered before, that her God loved her with patience, kindness, and every other attribute Paul covered in 1 Corinthians 13.

That is love.

That is what Valentine’s Day is about.

Celebrate this love…express love this way…live this love and you will not fail.

And as with most things, it starts with you

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Blessings,

Tim