Dear Friends in Christ,
To me it feels like Christmas has hardly passed, and already we see the stores full of pink and red heart-shaped boxes of candy, paper valentines, and roses to give to that very special person. It brings back childhood memories, eating boxes and boxes of tiny conversation hearts, until finally feeling sick. Valentine’s Day is now almost here.
Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love. To celebrate this love, the secular world would like us to picture flying cupids wearing togas and shooting arrows at people unawares. Those who are hit immediately fall in love with the first person that they meet. If you think about it, it is kind of a superficial way of thinking of love. We know love takes time and effort to grow and maintain. We know love is not that easy.
But in our world, the idea of love gets watered down. We say we love our families just as nonchalantly as we say we love a candy bar or chocolate chip cookies. At times it seems like we use the word love more to mean “I like something” rather than the true and much deeper meaning of the word.
For in Scripture, love is something entirely different than a simple feeling that means like. It isn’t a feeling at all. In Scripture, Love is a person. As St. John writes in his first epistle, “God is love.” (1 John 4:16). Love is the incarnate Son of God – Jesus Christ.
To see love, we look first to God, for God is the source and the substance of love. To understand how that love works and what that love means, we must look to Jesus, and the way that He showed His love to us. “No greater love is there than this, that one give up his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Jesus displays true love for you, as He enters this world of sin, taking upon Himself human flesh. He shows true love as He heals those around Him of sickness and sin. He shows love, most clearly, as He suffers, nailed to a cross, and gives up his own life as a sacrifice for all your sin. That is true love. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.” (1 John 3:16)
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9) In Jesus, you have life. In Jesus, you have forgiveness. In Jesus, you have perfect love flowing to you from God. You really can say that Jesus is Love Incarnate – Love made flesh.
The love of Jesus then flows out into our lives and into the lives of those around us. The love God gives us, the love of Jesus on the cross, fills us and overspills in mercy to those around us. Thus the love God gives us in the death of Jesus becomes the love that we share with our valentines here on earth as it pours from us to them.
That love, the Love that comes from God and flows to others, is a love that cannot be corrupted by sin. It is a love that overcomes all trials. It is patient, it is kind. It keeps no record of wrongs. It never fails. (1 Corinthians 13) That love is a deep love. Best of all, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God’s blessings to you this Valentine’s Day, as you receive the Love of God in Christ Jesus.
God's Blessings,
Pastor Adam Moline
