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Hallmark©, American Greetings©, Animal Charm Designs©, and Fresh Out of Ink© – all greeting card companies – and all having a very good week.
February 14th is Valentine’s Day, and Americans will purchase 145 million Valentine’s cards. If you are not one of those 145 million and need to purchase a card, consider this Interruption a friendly reminder.
Rumor has it that Valentine’s Day originated as a feast day celebrating two Christian martyrs named Valentine. Sort of an inauspicious beginning – martyrdom – for the day celebrated for love in America today.
Of course, some of the mischievous readers of this blog are probably thinking, “HHHHMMMHHM, martyrdom, and love, yes – I can see the connection.”
Stop this thinking!
Do not say to your significant other on Valentine’s Day, “Let me count the ways that I’ve died for this relationship.” If you do, please send this card by Zazzle© (another greeting card company) after Valentine’s Day.
Love is supposedly the undercurrent of Valentine’s Day. Let’s consider history’s best definition of love. It wasn’t found in a Valentine’s card …
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT, by the Apostle Paul).
The type of love found in the Bible was so unusual that the authors made up the word “agape” for it because no other word in the Greek language adequately described what they considered to be true love.
Love expressed today in movies, social media, and Valentine’s cards is easy sentimentality about self-desire rather than self-sacrifice for another person. How many of the 145 million people giving Valentine’s cards this year really mean the following?
Does not demand its own way … keeps no record of being wrong … is not irritable … never gives up … never loses faith … and endures through every circumstance.
The good news is that you won’t be shocked by a ten-dollar price tag for a Valentine’s card if you want to experience, need, or send Biblical love.
It’s free.
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).