5 minute read
This Little Light of Mine
I REFUSE TO CELEBRATE
“I’m not going to celebrate a ‘greeting card company’s madeup holiday!’ They aren’t getting a dollar of my money just because they made me feel guilty if I don’t buy cards, candy, flowers, and jewelry for my wife. She knows I love her!” Yikes! I had heard this co-worker’s same complaint before, every February for years it seemed. He was a die-hard, antisystem, conspiracy theorist, and he was determined to come out on top of all big business conspirators. I’d listen to his tired tirade yet again, nod and grin, seeming to agree, but then at the end of my shift I’d run out and grab up anything romantic I could find in the store aisles before they closed February 13. After all, I didn’t want my wife to think she was married to someone who wasn’t romantic or didn’t love and care for her. Valentine’s Day might be a “greeting card and jewelry company’s made-up holiday,” but I wasn’t about to take any chances!
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Over the years though, my curiosity led me to research the holiday. I learned my friend was mostly wrong. Valentine’s Day wasn’t created by the greeting-card companies – although they certainly do benefit – rather it seems that Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 established the Feast of Saint Valentine. The feast was to be celebrated on February 14 in honor of one Saint Valentine of Rome, who apparently died on that date in AD 269. While the actual personal and saintly details of Saint Valentine’s life and death remain vague (apparently there was more than one Valentine over the span of the few hundred years prior to the creation of the holiday), the proclamation took hold and morphed over the years from a “community feast” into more of a personal “lovers celebration.” Also, the first recorded Valentine cards were written and pasted together by hand and given from one lover to another in the early part of the fifteenth century – no greeting-card company or moneygrabbers in the mix. The bottom line is that there is plenty of history to support the holiday, even if it has deviated quite a bit from Pope Gelasius I’s original proclamation. So, with the greeting card/flower/candy/jewelry company conspiracy debunked, what are we to do with the seeming plethora of historical Valentine’s Day facts, guesses, and misinformation? Do they make us more or less inclined to express our gushing sentiments to our loved ones? I for one think not. In fact, I suggest we don’t even look in that direction for help and inspiration, neither for that syrupy holiday or any other for that matter. Perhaps we should look instead to the greatest source of information and inspiration, the one I call the original-original (see John 1:1-4). Maybe from the Word we can find help and clarification for all things concerning life and love? The Apostle John made an enlightening statement in one of his letters to other believers…
by Larry VanHoose
“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them (1 John 4:16 NLT).”
That begs the very personal question, one that only you can answer for yourself. Have you “put your trust in his love?” Do you “live in love” and “live in God” and does he live in you? Those are tough, important questions, and ones we should probably ask ourselves over and over again. And when things get challenging, ask them again. Finally, John starts to wrap up his thoughts in that first epistle with this extraordinary insight, “We love each other because he loved us first (1 John 4:19 NLT).” Let that sink in. We love – because he loved. God is the source of, our inspiration for, and the catalyst of – our love. Not feasts or holidays or dead saints (no disrespect) or capitalist companies, but God. As you prepare for the annual mid-February mandated “outpouring of love,” consider a couple of his own comments regarding that most important topic… "Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave.
Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it.
If a man tried to buy love with all his wealth, his offer would be utterly scorned. Song of Solomon 8:6-7 NLT
Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. Psalm 85:10-11 NIV
Sing for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O earth! Burst into song, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on them in their suffering.
Yet Jerusalem says, “The Lord has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us.”
“Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” Isaiah 49:13-15 NIV
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