As you well know, Valentine’s Day will be here in just a few days. In America, Valentine’s is a day of love. It’s a day for remembering our vows of love made for each other, and it’s a day for those who are desperately trying to win the affection of another male or female by enticing them with flowers and fattening gifts. We recognize it as a day of love, but what is love?
In the New Testament, godly love is called agape in the Greek, which is unconditional love. The type of love that comes with strings attached is eros, which is the word for physical desire. The love expressed among family members is storge; and the word for friendship between kindred spirits is philia, which we also understand as brotherly love. So, what type of love do most people usually have in mind on Valentine’s Day? Well, they’re probably thinking about eros, which is the physical kind of love.
Now, one figure who’s usually associated with Valentine’s Day is Cupid. “Cupid has always played a role in celebrations of love . . . He is known as a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows would pierce the hearts of his victims causing them to fall deeply in love. In ancient Greece he was known as Eros the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Roman’s he was Cupid, and his mother was Venus.”(1)
Based on Cupid’s Greek name, we get an idea of how the world understands love. Cupid’s name is “Eros” in Greek. And the world’s understanding of love is of the physical and conditional type; the love of self-seeking and self-gratification. However, Cupid has nothing to do with the real meaning behind Valentine’s Day. He’s just part of the secularization, or the distortion, of a Christian holiday. Remember, the word “holiday” comes from the two words “holy” and “day.”
This morning we’re going to examine the real story behind Valentine’s Day; and by doing so, we’ll discover the true nature of the love that’s supposed to be remembered and practiced on this holiday.
Love is Laying Down One’s Life (v. 16)
16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Jesus shared the essence of love in John 15:13, when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Our Savior didn’t just say this in order to impress His disciples, He literally acted it out; just as verse 16 says, “He laid down His life for us.” Jesus Christ died on the cross that we might live. He did this because He considers those who believe in Him as His friends. He became the sacrifice to take our place in death, when we should be the ones to die for our sins.
Jesus sacrificed Himself for us; and the very word “sacrifice” portrays the meaning of agape love. The word “sacrifice” means “something given up or lost.”(2) When we love someone unconditionally, it means that we will sacrifice, or give up, our own welfare that another person will gain. This is the kind of love that we’re supposed to remember and practice on Valentine’s Day; and not just on Valentine’s Day, but each and every day of the year. This is the same kind of love that Saint Valentine practiced.
According to church tradition Saint Valentine was a priest near Rome in about the year 270 A.D. At that time the Roman Emperor was imprisoning Christians for not worshipping the Roman gods. During this persecution, Valentine was arrested. Some say that he was arrested because he was performing Christian marriages, but others say it was for helping Christians escape from prison.
During the trial, they asked Valentine what he thought of the Roman gods Jupiter and Mercury. Of course, Valentine said they were false gods and that the God that Jesus called Father was the only true God. So, the Romans threw him in prison for insulting the gods.
While in prison, Valentine continued to minister [and] he witnessed to the guards. One of the guards was a good man who had adopted a blind girl. He asked Valentine if his God could help his daughter. So, Valentine prayed and the girl was given her sight.
The guard and his entire family, forty-six people, believed in Jesus and were baptized. Because these people had come to know Jesus, Valentine praised God right there in his prison cell. When the emperor heard about this he was furious that Valentine was still making converts even in prison; and so he had Valentine beheaded.(3)
The second part of 1 John 3:16 says, “And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
Valentine knew that he might get caught in his Christian activities. He knew that if he told the court the truth about the Roman gods that he would be thrown in prison. And he knew that if he continued to witness for Christ in the prison that he would make his captors angry. But he continued, because he loved the Lord and his fellow human beings. He was willing to risk his life to free the prisoners and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who needed to hear it.(4)
We just read, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). God showed this kind of love by coming to the earth in human form, in the person of Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. And Saint Valentine demonstrated this type of love when he died for his friends. This is the kind of love that Valentine’s Day is really all about.(5)
Now, in case you’re concerned about laying down your life, I’m not necessarily referring to martyrdom. Laying down one’s life is about “sacrifice.” We can make sacrifices in many different ways. We can sacrifice of our time, or we can sacrifice of our resources such as food, clothing, and money. Showing love to another person in the name of Christ is a rewarding experience; and when we show someone the love of Jesus, we find fulfillment and completeness in our lives.
J. I. Packer, in his book Knowing God, gives us a definition of love. In quoting James Orr, he says, “Love, generally, is that principle which leads one moral being to desire and delight in another . . . and finds his joy in imparting himself to the other.”(6) So, we find joy in laying down our life for others.
Love Not in Word, But in Deed (vv. 17-19)
17 But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.
If we have the goods or resources to give to those in need, but we keep them to ourselves, how does the love of God abide in us? Over in 1 John 4:20, we read, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.” If we refuse to help those in need, but we say that we know God and love Him, then we’re nothing but liars, according to John; and we really don’t know Him at all. Let us not love simply “in word,” but also “in deed.”
Pastor Charles Lowery (formerly of Hoffmantown Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico) said that one of his staff members once told him that if it would help someone come to know Jesus that he would be willing to be re-baptized. You see, Lowery discovered that people who would normally refuse to be baptized, would observe the ordinance if the pastor would be willing to do it with them. Therefore, Lowery went back to that staff member who said that he would be re-baptized and asked him if he was serious, and he said, “No, that was just talk.”(7)
That’s just talk . . . For how many of us is our claim to show the love of Christ just talk? You know the expression: Actions speak louder than words. Are we going to just talk the talk, or are we truly going to walk the walk? We have to show our love through deed in our everyday lives, not just when we greet each other in church on Sunday mornings. By showing unconditional love each and every day, then we know that we’re God’s children; and it becomes our assurance that we are indeed saved, and that the Lord is always with us. Not to mention, it is an amazing witness to the world.
Following the Lord’s Commandment (v. 23)
23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
So, we have seen that we’re expected to show the love of Christ to others. Right here is the key to having agape, or unconditional love. The first thing we have to do is “believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ.” The second thing we need to do is “love one another,” not just ourselves. These are the two great commandments, as laid out in Matthew 22:37-39, which declare, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The way that we show our love towards God is to demonstrate our love and obedience to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the means whereby we communicate with the heavenly Father and are connected to Him, because Jesus is our mediator. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” Until we know Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we can never truly understand what unconditional love is; and, until we know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we cannot make it to heaven. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Now, 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He first loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [or the atoning sacrifice] for our sins.” God loved us first, thereby setting the example for us to follow. We cannot love until we know what love truly is; and we cannot know what love really is, until we know the One who first loved us. We learn love by the example that God gave us in His Son, Jesus Christ.
You see, Jesus gave us the ultimate example of unconditional love when He died on the cross. When we accept what He did for us, and experience the forgiveness of our sins, then we will reciprocate that love in kind. We will know how to forgive, when we ourselves have been forgiven. We will know how to love, when we ourselves have been loved.
Time of Reflection
So, how many of us truly know what love is? An even better question is this: Have we experienced true love ourselves? Have we come to know the love of Jesus Christ, and His blood that cleanses us from all sins? If we’ve never experienced unconditional love, then how can we know what to share with others?
Those of us who know Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord know the meaning of unconditional love; and we often speak with our mouths that we love one another. However, I want to encourage you to put those words into action each and every day.
And if there’s anyone here this morning who doesn’t know the love of Jesus Christ, you can experience His love right now. Just believe that Jesus died to take your place, when you should be the one to die for your own sins; and believe that He rose from the grave victorious over sin and death; and then confess before others your faith, and you will be saved (Romans 10:9-10).
NOTES
(1) Taken from the Internet in February 2000 at http://www.holidays.net/amore/story.html.
(2) “Collegiate Dictionary,” Handbook for Writers, 1999 Prentice-Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
(3) Alex Stevenson, God’s Valentine, taken from the Internet in February 2000 at http://members.carol.net/~asmsmsks/valentin.htm.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 123.
(7) Charles Lowery, “How to Keep the Church Body Functioning Without Loosing Any of Your Body Parts in the Process,” Shepherding the Shepherd. A conference held on January 27-29, 2000 at the Radison hotel in Lexington, Kentucky.
