Foundation of all Valentines
Deuteronomy
7:6-8, 1 John 4:7-12
February 8, 2015
Grace Presbyterian
Church
Rev. Dr. Richard E. Miller
Valentines
1.9 billion spent on 224 million roses.
4.4 billion spent on diamonds, gold and silver. 1.6 billion spent on
candy. 145 million cards. All generated by one little moment of time we call
Valentine’s day. Ah, to pick out the perfect
card. To find the just right words to express your feelings. Hallmark has 1,400
different Valentine cards from which to choose.
If, however, you men are also going to
buy a gift for the woman in your life, you might like to take a suggestion from
Samuel Pepys [1633-1703 English Diarist]
who gave his wife “a turkey-stone set with diamonds.” This gift
apparently pleased her so much that he noted, “I am glad of it, for it is fit the
wretch should have something to content herself with.” Now is that
romantic or what?
Origin
of Valentine’s
Day No one knows for
sure how Valentine’s
Day began since it’s
origins are shrouded in mystery. We do know that at least eight different men
in history were named Valentine and each has been credited with being the
founder of this special day.
One undocumented theory traces this
celebration back to the Romans who held a Feast of Rebirth in February to honor
of the pastoral god Lupercalia. During the feast, the names of young maidens
were placed in a box. Then young men drew the names and they automatically were
partners for the rest of the Feast of Rebirth. Talk about a blind date! But
both the young men and women eagerly looked forward to this event each year.
But then the Christians got into the
act. They thought it immoral to have their young people thrown together in such
a manner so they changed the practice of putting the names of young maidens in
the box by substituting the names of saints of the Church instead.
Now, young people of both sexes would
draw a saint’s
name from the box and promise to emulate the particular virtues of that saint
for the next twelve months. Needless to say, the young men thought it far more
fun to pick a girl’s
name than that of a saint. And so did the girls!
Love Covenants No matter when or
how the custom began, Valentines, with their hearts and cupids, have come to
symbolize many things - love, trust, commitment and dreams. Life would be empty
indeed without such mutual love and respect. Vows, spoken or implied, are
freely taken by the parties to these covenants.
It is interesting to read the love
letters some of our Presidents sent over the years.
When courting Pat Ryan, Richard Nixon
wrote, “Every day and every night I want to
see you and be with you.”
While at the Potsdam conference in
Europe, Harry Truman wrote to his wife, Bess, “I spent the day trying to think up
reasons why I should bust up the Conference and go home.”
John Adams wrote to his future wife,
Abigail, “Miss Adorable. By the same token that
the bearer hereof sat up with you last night, I hereby order you to give him as
many kisses and as many hours of your company after 9 o’clock as he shall please to demand,
and charge them to my account.
And Teddy Roosevelt wrote to his wife,
Alice, “Sweetest little wife, I could almost
cry I love you so.” [1883]
Foundation
of Valentines Day As touching as these sentiments are, this
morning I’d
like to talk about another Valentine. This Valentine is from John and it reads,
“Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. God’s love was revealed among us in this
way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”
Foundation
of All Valentines This
Valentine of God’s love was the gift of Jesus. And the
gift of Jesus is, if you will, the “Foundation of all Valentines.” There is no other
Valentine like this in the whole world. Why? Because this Valentine established
a covenant of love between God and us. It’s
an amazing Valentine Covenant for several reasons:
Only
We Can Break the Covenant
First of all, the only time this
covenant is broken is by us, not God. God always keeps his part of the
covenant. We are the guilty party in the court of heaven. Second, even though
we break our side of the covenant, the covenant remains solid as a rock because
through the broken body and shed blood of Christ, both sides of this divine
Valentine were kept perfect for all eternity.
Characteristics
of God’s
Valentine
God’s Valentine displays four characteristics:
it is personal, costly, living, and permanent.
1. Personal It is personal in that God’s Valentine does not say: “To Whom it may concern,“ or “To current occupant,” but
rather it has your name on it. That’s
right, God knows your name. In Isaiah we read, “Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from
far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb
he named me.” [Isaiah 49:1] And God said, “O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have
called you by name, you are mine.” [Isaiah 43]
The personal nature of God’s valentine becomes most apparent when
we go to him seeking forgiveness for our sins. Why? Because we are admitting
sins of a most secret nature - sins which we have admitted to no one else in
the world. Thus, seeking and receiving forgiveness is a most personal
interchange between ourselves and God. But by so doing God’s
Valentine Covenant is restored to wholeness.
2. Expensive
Not only is God’s
valentine personal, it is also the most expensive Valentine in all of history.
God didn’t
buy our valentine from a store. And he didn’t send us chocolates or expensive
diamonds. Instead, he sent us his only son to die for our sins on the Cross.
As Peter wrote, “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or
blemish.” [1
Peter 1:18-19] All who have lost loved ones know the pain God must have felt
when his son suffered and died.
3. Living
In addition to being personal and expensive, God’s valentine is a living valentine
since it is not written on tablets of stone or pieces of paper, but rather is written
on the tablets of our hearts. That means that as we allow God’s Spirit to enter our hearts, God’s valentine of love springs to life.
Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” [1 Peter 1:3]
Paul wrote to Timothy, “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of
the Holy Spirit living in us.” [2
Timothy 1:14] So we don’t
put God’s valentine into a drawer and forget
about it. We engage our God in a loving relationship each day thus enabling his
valentine to be a vibrant part of our daily lives.
4. Permanent Finally, this Valentine is permanent. It
lasts throughout our lives. It lasts forever, even into the life to come when
we are resurrected to eternal life. Nothing can destroy it since God’s love endures forever. It is up to us
to read God’s
valentine of love each day. Although we can ignore what it says, we cannot
escape God’s
love for us. Nothing in all creation, including our sins, can separate us from
the love of God. [Romans 8] It is a permanent Valentine that is fresh and new
each day.
Open
the Valentine As you know, Valentines are fun to receive.
However, Valentines don’t mean much if we set them aside or
put them in a drawer unopened. It is important that we tear open the envelope
to read the sentiments inside for the Valentine to have meaning. The same is
true of God’s
Valentine. Although his Valentine is personal, costly, living and permanent, it
does us absolutely no good if we don’t
open it. Far too many Christians leave God’s promises of forgiveness and renewal
unopened. Some don’t
open it because they don’t
feel worthy of God’s
love. They look back over their lives, remembering the things they’ve done and said, and think, “My
life has been a waste. No one, including God, could possibly love me.” But that’s they’re wrong.
God doesn’t love us because we are worthy, we
are worthy because God loves us.
And we must always remember that every saint has a past and every sinner has
a future.
Foundation
of All Valentines
Finally, God’s Valentine in Christ is the
foundation of all other valentines of our lives. Unless our love relationship
with God is solid, all human love is on shaky ground. When wives and husbands
love the Lord together, they can do all things together in Christ. When parents
and children pray for and with one another each day, misunderstandings can be
worked out. When good friends are both committed to Christ, then they can then
be committed to one another. As a result, God can serve as the mender of broken
human covenants.
This morning I declare that each of
you has been called to be God’s
living Valentines of love. To live each day knowing God loves you just as you
are, that he loves those around you just as they are, and to reveal God’s love in every way possible. And as
you are doing this, listen to the sentiments of the following.
If Tomorrow Never Comes
(author unknown) If I knew you
needed me there to share your day, well I'm sure you'll have so many more so I
can let just this one slip away. For surely there's always tomorrow to make up
for an oversight, and we always get a second chance to make everything right.
There will always be another day to say our," I love you's," And
certainly there's another chance to say our. "Anything I can do's?" But just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you and I hope we never forget. Tomorrow is not
promised to anyone, young or old alike, and today may be the last chance you
get to hold your loved one tight. So if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do
it today? For if tomorrow never comes, you'll
surely regret the day that you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug,
or a kiss and you were too busy to grant someone what turned out to be their
one last wish. So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,
tell them how much you love them, and that you’ll always hold them dear. Take time to
say “I'm sorry,” “please forgive me,”
“thank you,”
or “It's okay.”
And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today. Amen
1 John 4:7-12 NRSV
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not
know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only
Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that
we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice
for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one
another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and
his love is perfected in us.
Deuteronomy
7:6-8 NRSV
For you are a people holy to the Lord
your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to
be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more
numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the
Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord
has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
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The
teacher in our adult-education creative-writing class told us to write
"I love you" in 25 words or less, without using the words "I
love you." She gave us 15 minutes. A woman in the class spent about ten
minutes looking at the ceiling and wriggling in her seat. The last five
minutes she wrote frantically, and later read us the results:
"Why,
I've seen lots worse hairdos than that, honey."
"These
cookies are hardly burned at all."
"Cuddle
up-I'll get your feet warm."
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