Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Title

Be My Valentine

John 15:12-17

February 14, 2010

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

Well, today is Valentine’s Day which is why this sermon is all about love – not the romantic love that everyone thinks about on Valentine’s Day, but the kind of love that Jesus talked about when He said,

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in My name. This is My command: Love each other.” John 15:12-17

Once again, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” …. to lay down his life for his friends. That is a little different from what Valentine’s Day has come to mean – the self-serving kind of turn on that is all about how somebody else makes me feel, or all the things that someone else does to make ME feel good, to make ME feel important, to make ME feel excited.

This may come as a surprise to a lot of us, but Valentine’s Day can be one of the toughest days of the year for a whole lot of people. They say that Valentine’s Day has only one qualification for you to be included: that you are loved by someone else and that you can prove it … with a ring, with flowers, with candy, with a card. But there are all kinds of people who do NOT qualify to be remembered on this day: people who are lonely, those who have no companion, those who have lost loves to break-ups or death or divorce.

I came across an article that offered some really helpful thoughts to that those who feel so left out on this day. She suggested that the main thing is to redefine this day. In the passage we just read, Jesus defined love in terms of friends. Make Valentine’s Day not about romantic love but about genuine friendship. Many people who do not have companions DO have friends.

Another way to redefine the day is to redefine the scheduling of this day. Don’t limit it to just February 14th, but reach out with your own Valentine’s Day card to those friends several times throughout the year.

A third way to redefine the day is to be your own Valentine. Jesus told us to love one another as we love ourselves. So do that by first being sure to love yourself: be good to yourself, treat yourself with something special. But most importantly, forgive yourself.

But I think there is a fourth way to redefine the day, something that every Christian should do. One of the last things Jesus ever said about love was that we are to love one another as JESUS first loved us. Love as HE first loved us. In other words, redefine Valentine’s Day according to how JESUS defined love. Love as HE first loved us. And how DID He love us? The answer is on the cross. He gave His life so that we might live. For Jesus, love was not about what you get from someone else, but about how YOU sacrifice for the well-being of the other. Love, according to Jesus, is sacrificial for the sake of another.

And that is what Valentine’s Day actually does come from. It goes back to around 300 A.D. to a Catholic priest in Rome whose name was Valentine. This was a generation or so before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. When Valentine served in Rome, the emperors often used Christians as scapegoats for persecution, when Christians were fed to lions. The story goes that the emperor had made it illegal for young men to get married because young married guys made poor soldiers. When they were married, guys did not want to go off to war, when they did go, their hearts were not really in it because their hearts were back home. There was desertion. So no married soldiers.

But being a priest, Valentine secretly married young lovers. When he was brought before the emperor, the king tried to convert Valentine from Christianity, that he might pay homage to the pagan gods. Valentine instead tried to convert the emperor to Christianity. This got him thrown in prison.

And while he was there he met the emperor’s daughter with whom he struck up a friendship. Some legends have it that she was blind and he miraculously cured her blindness. In any case, the day before his execution, he wrote her a fond farewell and signed it, “Your Valentine”. The next day he was burned alive at the stake.

So, Valentine’s Day was about a Christian who gave his life out of love and devotion to Jesus. You will notice that the bulletins this morning are designed in the form of Valentine cards which say, “Be My Valentine.” For whom did St. Valentine give his life? The very same One who gave His life for yours. The very same One who is the One who says to you, “Be My Valentine.”

To BE His Valentine is to be called to sacrifice yourself for His sake. Jesus said that all the commandments boil down to this, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and then to love your neighbor as yourself. Love ... as in sacrifice for the sake of God, for the sake of your neighbor.

So, LET us refine Valentine’s Day ... to what it originally was, to what Jesus said is Christian love – not about how someone else makes us feel good, but about how we sacrifice ourselves, our agendas, our desires for the welfare of the other.

Amen, may it be so.