“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  - John 15:13

It’s officially Valentine’s Day, and sheesh, is there a more divisive holiday? For some people it might as well be the Super Bowl, and for others, well, they’re just looking forward to the discounted candy on the clearance aisle tomorrow. As for me, I am a cynic by nature and an optimist by force of will, so while the temptation to dismiss Valentine’s Day as a phony holiday for credit card companies to take advantage of suckers is real, I decided to look a bit deeper. I wanted to know the real roots of Valentine’s Day. The long story short is that Saint Valentine was a third century Roman Saint who spent his life performing weddings in secret, telling people about Christ, and helping people to lead a Holy lifestyle, despite all of these being life-threatening endeavors due to the government he was under. Ultimately, his dedication to what he believed to be right and true cost him his life, as he was imprisoned and decapitated on February 14th due to defying Emperor Claudius II. That’s right, Valentine’s Day is the anniversary of a saint getting decapitated, not such a teddy bear holiday now, is it? Valentine’s Day is METAL, dude. But reading about Saint Valentine and his sacrifices brought to mind a core principle throughout scripture, the almost synonymous nature of love with sacrifice and courage. Looking at Saint Valentine’s life, we wouldn’t have this day to celebrate love if not for it being accompanied by courage, would we?

Saint Valentine, our culture’s hero of love, was following the Biblical example of self-sacrifice and courage, even to the point of it costing him his life. Forget the flowers and chocolate, maybe Valentine’s Day is one of the coolest holidays ever. We love to romanticize this concept of “laying down your life”, but what if laying down your life is more about what you do with your days than what you do with your death? C.S Lewis famously said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken... To love is to be vulnerable.” And what is more courageous than vulnerability? Or as one of my favorite songs says, “Cause here’s the thing, to know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time.” Sacrificial, Christlike love, demands and necessitates the courage to risk, no, to embrace, the likelihood that you will be hurt. And then, you show love and kindness anyway to the strangers around you, the outcasts that are perennially ignored, and the people who are most difficult to show it to. It’s easy to say you’d die for someone or something, but living? Different story. Dying is easy, living is harder. 

So this Valentine’s Day, whether you are single, dating, engaged, or married, my hope and prayer is that this would be a reminder to you that love is about so much more than romance and cute cards. How are you choosing courage and sacrifice to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those around you? Can you be brave enough to confront a friend when you know they’re wrong? Can you sacrifice time you really wanted to spend watching another episode of that show you’ve been binging, and instead make time to support a friend going through a hard time? Can you die to the idol of self long enough to try and see someone else’s perspective and show them a bit of understanding and compassion, even when that is the hardest thing to do? Can you sacrifice a night at home to serve your community? Sometimes the bravest form of love is to love those around us even when we KNOW it will cost us, even when it hurts, even when we’re vulnerable and still get stung. Now that? That’s courage. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Saint Valentine, it’s that love and courage are often one and the same.

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