June is customarily the
month recognized for weddings, but February is the month we celebrate our love
for our wives, husbands, and sweethearts if we are not married. More candy,
flowers, and stuffed animals are purchased during February than any other month
of the year as we attempt to show our love for that special person in our
lives. Valentine’s Day is a traditional time to celebrate romantic love.
I
Corinthians 13: 13 reads: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these
three; but the greatest of these is charity[1].”
What if traditional
Judeo-Christian love and marriage were illegal? Never happen? It has happened
and Valentine’s Day has its origins in just such an occurrence. History tells
us the Roman Emperor Claudius II prohibited marriage for young people. His
perverted view thought the single soldiers fought better than married soldiers
because those married soldiers constantly thought about their wives and family
back home, taking their minds off the battle. So the Emperor outlawed marriage
in the third century.
Of course the Church
taught the sanctity of Biblical marriage between one man and one woman. But the
Emperor overruled the Biblical Law and marriage became illegal. A Roman priest
named Valentine encouraged young lovers to marry within the Church and defy the
Emperor’s edict. Valentine was put in prison where he met Julia the blind
daughter of either his jailor or accuser and led her to Christ. History tells
us her blindness was healed in the process. Legend tells us that Valentine’s
last act before he was executed on 14 February 269 AD was writing a note to
Julia urging her to be loyal to God. He signed it “Your Valentine,” which
inspired today’s romantic Valentine Cards and gifts of love. Now you know the
rest of the story.
My lovely wife Martha
and I discovered when we study God’s Word together and attempt to be obedient
to the Holy Scripture our love continues to grow even after so many years of
marriage. Every year since they have made them, I have given her a Teddy Bear
with the year inscribed on the foot and another gift of some kind as a
surprise. She has all of them except two which we think a granddaughter carried
out of the house because I forgot to get her a princess bear those two years.
When the world seems to come crashing down, as it sometimes does to all of us,
I take her by the hand and after we pray, it seems the sun comes out, the birds
begin singing, and we smile and endure the trouble or hardship together with
Joy because of the love in our hearts. When in that perfect union that the
Bible describes, it seems as if someone is walking with us and protecting us.
Oh we have bad days, but it is always when we are at odds with one another. But
we never let the sun go down on our disagreements. I pray your love for that
special person in your life brings you the Joy God intends.
“…God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent His only Begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if
God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (I John 4:8-11)
Rev. Ben McKee Chaplain, VFW, Enterprise, Alabama
