Above Your Own

Valentine's Day has become a popular holiday where the concept of loving others is actually at the root. And, amidst all the candy and flowers, there is a deep truth - if we are to walk in love, and especially in the love of God, we have to take our eyes off ourselves. John 15 reminds us:
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

There was a piece I came across on the Chattanooga Times-Free Press website from Lauren Hall of the organization based in that area called, First Things First.  In tracing the history of what we now know as Valentine's Day, she wrote:

There were at least two martyred saints named Valentine in the early Christian church, and their stories are a bit murky.

One story claims St. Valentine was a priest who performed secret marriages for young lovers in defiance of an emperor's ban on matrimony for soldiers. The most popular tale claims he was imprisoned for helping Christians escape persecution and fell in love with his jailer's daughter, sending her a note signed, "From your Valentine." While the truth may never be fully untangled, the romantic undertones of these stories cemented Valentine's Day as a celebration of love.

She went on to write:

At its core, Valentine's Day is about pausing to express love and gratitude to those who matter most. Whether it's your spouse, kids or even your closest friends, this day invites us to step away from the busyness of life and focus on our relationships. It's less about the commercialized fanfare and more about the heartfelt connections that make life richer.

A CBN.com article includes quotes from Father Frank O'Gara of the Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland.  He offers a take on the Valentine's story that indeed St. Valentine did defy the emperor's ban on marriage, and that he had prayed for the jailer's blind daughter to be healed.  

O'Gara states:

"If Valentine were here today, he would say to married couples that there comes a time where you're going to have to suffer. It's not going to be easy to maintain your commitment and your vows in marriage. Don't be surprised if the 'gushing' love that you have for someone changes to something less "gushing" but maybe much more mature. And the question is, is that young person ready for that?"

"So on the day of the marriage they have to take that into context," Father O'Gara says. "Love—human love and sexuality is wonderful, and blessed by God—but also the shadow of the cross. That's what Valentine means to me."

Being unselfish is a key to walking in love that is consistent with what we find outlined in Scripture - and it starts in the human heart.  The Bible Project website notes, regarding Adam and Eve:

Adam and Eve "complete" one another not by satisfying each other’s personal desires but by becoming unbreakable partners who seek the other's well-being. Today’s popular understanding of romance rarely gets past the "satisfy my desires" sense of love. But the authors of Genesis describe this “unbreakable partners” sense of love as a foundation for human flourishing and tov—the goodness and right-functioning of creation itself.

That article goes on to say:

Maybe love can start with feelings of attraction and desire, and maybe those initial feelings can expand and deepen when we are putting the other person’s well-being above our own while they are simultaneously doing the same for us. Can you imagine someone seeing you, in all of your ordinariness and quirkiness and imperfection, and staying committed to you no matter what? And not just staying but caring, forgiving, blessing, and loving without end, all while you’re doing the same in return?

In all our relationships, romantic and otherwise, may we look to Jesus and his ultimate example of what it means to love another person. What wondrous love is this? “To lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

So, amidst all this talk of love and romance that circulates around Valentine's Day, we can think of those enduring qualities that can contribute to rewarding relationships involving not only couples, but general human interaction.  It's symbolized by the cross itself - the fact that God's only Son laid down His life, as an act of supreme love, so that we might benefit by having our sins wiped away and so that we might be saved.

In the flesh, we can become so self-centered; and the vying for selfish gratification can put us at odds with the people around us. Our call as Christians is to demonstrate the selfless love of Christ so that we can be cognizant of the needs of others and become more sensitive to how we can speak and act toward them in a way that shows them our Savior.