Valentines

For some people, the one day that’s scarier than Friday the 13^th is Friday the 14^th…when the 14^th lands on a Friday in February!  (Okay, there’s also tax deadline day, but that’s another story.)

Yes, it’s Valentine’s Day.

As a child, I remember that it was customary to bring a valentine for everybody in my class at school.  Looking back, I think that seemed a bit artificial, but there was value in leaving no one out.  At the same time, I sort of wished I could have just brought one valentine…usually for the prettiest girl in the class.

Though Valentine’s Day is in no particular way a Christian feast day – not even among most of those who celebrate saints’ days – my childhood experience does reflect something of God’s view on love.  That is, God has a valentine for everybody.  After all, Jesus said that God so loved the world – not a select few.  God’s love for everybody is what sent his only Son into the world…that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

Here’s a way I’ve seen it depicted visually.  Spend a few minutes pondering this image, and give thanks to God that he sent you a valentine in Jesus.  Will you send one back to him?

No Greater Love

For Christians in many traditions, this coming Wednesday marks a special day:  it will be Ash Wednesday.  And if you notice the calendar, it falls this year on February 14, which is also widely celebrated in western culture at Valentine’s Day.

When you were a kid, maybe your experience was a bit like mine.  My mother had me write out Valentines for each of my classmates.  After all, it was the right thing to do.  But did you feel, well, awkward about some of them?  Like they were going to be received as pregnant with meaning when they weren’t?

Love, as they say, is a many-splendoured thing.  And it is multi-faceted, like a beautiful diamond.  It can be possible to read too much – or too little – into an expression of human love.  A Valentine can be an expression of single-minded devotion, or it can be simply conforming to a cultural tradition.

Ash Wednesday inaugurates the season of Lent, a 40-day (note that Sundays are not included, since each Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection!) period of penitence and preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It is a whole season that prepares us to receive the greatest gift of love – the greatest Valentine – ever offered.  There is nothing ambiguous about this Valentine.  Jesus only has one meaning for it – selfless, life-giving love.

You don’t need to celebrate Lent to value what Jesus has done for us.  But many people find it a helpful time to awaken their awareness of what God is doing in their lives.

This coming Wednesday, whether you receive the imposition of ashes or not, understand that the greatest Valentine you will ever receive has paid the price for your sins, has paved the way for eternal life to be yours.

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command” (Jesus, John 15.14-15a, NLT).