I have trouble with Valentine’s Day. Chocolate, chalky heart candies, rose bouquets, romance forced by the calendar…all to commemorate a martyr’s beheading???
Though the history is admittedly blurry, it is believed that Valentine was a bishop near Rome under the reign of Claudius the Cruel. The emperor was discouraged that so few men were enlisting for the army; he became convinced it was because they were too attached to their wives and families. He then banned new marriages, hoping men would be content with conjugal acts apart from commitment.
Valentinus began meeting young couples in the woods to perform covert Christian marriage ceremonies. But his disregard for the emperor’s edict caught up with him. Apparently he was arrested for this as well as for evangelizing. The emperorreportedly liked speaking with the imprisoned Valentinus, until he tried to convince Claudius to come to Christ. At that point the emperor turned the tables, commanding that Valentinus either renounce his faith or be beaten with clubs and then beheaded. Valentinus refused and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269.
Look, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t celebrate your marriage or your burgeoning romance. Go for it! Cultivate that relationship with care, and with chocolate and greeting cards, if you’re into that sort of thing. But do it for the glory of God. Don’t make your romance itself an ultimate thing, because death will part you, and if your romance only stood for passing pleasure and comfort, then is that really worth celebrating?
What we get a glimpse of with the Valentinus story is that we can love our spouses with an eternal perspective, and we can love even our enemies because we’ve come to know the One whose love is better than life. So maybe you want to stare your lover in the eyes today and tell them, “I’d marry you again secretly in the woods, even if it got us killed.” Just kidding, that doesn’t sound as good as it did in my head. Well, at the very least, whether you’re in a relationship or single, go out with some friends and celebrate that Love came down and took us unto Himself. Toast the God of Valentinus, and rejoice that “not even death will be able to separate us from His love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord”