Last week, we saw Pancake day, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s day.
I wonder which you celebrated?
At the heart of all of them is a single story.
I reread some of the origin stories of St Valentine this week.
They vary as often these ancient stories do, but they have a common thread.
A priest called Valentine is martyred because of persecution by the state against Christians.
One story describes St Valentine signing a letter ‘from your Valentine’ to his jailer’s daughter, who he had healed from blindness before he was put to death.
Another describes him as defying the Roman Emperor’s orders and secretly marrying Christian couples allowing the husbands to escape conscription.
In each story, St Valentine acts selflessly and lovingly to those under his care as well as to his enemy.
St Valentine’s Day is actually about a stronger, deeper, more enduring love than that which was advertised in the marketing this week.
St Valentine had encountered God’s love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It was this love that enabled him to love others as he did, even his enemies.
St Valentine was inspired and empowered by the Easter story. A story we remember on our journey through Lent to Easter day. Jesus’ selfless giving of himself in order to restore relationship between the creator and the created.
His acts of kindness, healing, deliverance, words of transformation, his death on the cross and his resurrection were like a Valentine card to the world.
In this season of Lent, leading up to Easter, there will be lots of opportunities to explore and enter into this great love story in churches around Reading. Why don’t you take time to find out more at a church near you.
Paul Lapworth, minister of Wycliffe Baptist Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Reading
