Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today’s the day that societally I’m supposed to hate and cry about and make self-deprecating jokes about drowning my sorrows in wine and chocolate. Or as a Christian I should be talking about how Jesus is my Valentine! Which ya know, isn’t untrue. But that’s not what I’m talking about necessarily.

Knowing me, you probably think I’m going to talk about how to rock your singleness. But that post already exists so I’m just going to link that here.

No, no. Today I’m talking about Valentine himself. Because despite contrary belief, Valentine’s Day wasn’t created by Hallmark to sell cards and despite the commercialism it’s actually an incredibly important holiday if you look at the past. You see, Saint Valentine, although traditionally associated with courtly love, actually lived an incredible life.

Valentine was a Christian during the 3rd century who is ascribed with praying for a blind girl to be healed and preaching the Gospel even against the emperor of Rome. Valentine was eventually sentenced to death for sharing the Gospel and was executed on February 14, 269. Valentine was a martyr.

Recently, I’ve started a History of Missions course through my church and last night I was reading about the early missionaries and church from the first to fifth centuries. It was an encouraging but also a sobering read as the many martyrdoms were described with detail. Reading about martyrs and celebrating a day that celebrates a martyr begs the question, why? Why would people be compelled to die gruesome deaths for Christ? And how can we honor Valentine appropriately in light of the truth about his story.

The Gospel is compelling because it is tells us the greatest love story ever. And I know that it’s cheesy but it’s true. And if you don’t believe me, read the accounts of early church martyrs like Valentine, Stephen or Perpetua. While I could explain the Gospel while using the entire Bible, I think the one that is most fitting for today is that of Hosea and Gomer.

Hosea is a prophet in the Bible whom God calls to marry a prostitute. He obeys and she continues to be a prostitute. They have children together, he has to buy her freedom on occasion. But he stays married to her and loves her regardless. This story is a picture of the love that God has for us. He chose us to be in communion with Him and yet we, like Gomer, perpetually sin against God. But in His divine mercy and grace, God loves us in return. He bought our freedom through the death and resurrection of His Son. But it doesn’t end with our salvation. Because of Christ’s work on the cross and God’s loving kindness, we get to get to live in the freedom that Christ won for us and experience the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives and those around us. We get to join God on His mission to bring blessing to every nation, tribe, and tongue. And THAT is worth dying for. THAT is why St. Valentine and Stephen and countless others have given up their lives for Him.

So that’s what I want to think about on Valentine’s Day; the Gospel. The story of God loving us so much even if our sin that He made a way to restore us to Him. It’s so much more than the classic, Jesus is my valentine rhetoric. He can be. Because He loves you. But He’s also mighty and powerful and that power lives inside of all of us. And He’s called us to share the Gospel. He’s called us to be a blessing and to love our neighbors and our enemies more than ourselves.

So if you love Jesus - let’s not make today about us. Let’s make today about Christ and His love for the entire world that compels people daily to sacrifice their lives and their comfort to share the Gospel. Let’s make today about radically loving and serving those in our communities who don’t know Christ. Let’s make today all about Him and honor Him with our lives.

And for crying out loud, let’s be content whatever our relationship status. Because marriage is temporal and we’ve been called to fix our eyes on the eternal.