Celebrating love on Valentine’s Day is what I love to do, but maybe you don’t know there really was a Christian Saint named Valentine, and many actually were named after the original.
Valentine lived in the late 200s in Italy. History swirls a lot of legend into it, but here are a few things traditionally believed about Valentine. He was a bishop when Christianity was illegal and persecuted. He was jailed for preaching of Jesus Christ, teaching that Jesus was God in flesh and blood, an offense to the Roman emperor who demanded that all worship only him. But Valentine preached of the Love of God through Christ.
During his confinement, Valentine shared Christ with the judge. The judge tested this God of the Christians by bringing his blind daughter to Valentine and demanding that he heal her. Valentine prayed and the girl was healed.
Valentine told the judge to remove all his idols, fast for three days and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. The judge did so, and, after three days, his entire household, 40 people in all, were baptized. Valentine was freed, and he continued to correspond with the girl he had healed.
He also continued to perform marriages for Christians, an illegal practice. But he believed in love, and brought God’s blessing to couples seeking marriage. He was arrested and taken to Rome to appear before Emperor Claudius II. He sought to convert the emperor to Christ and for that he was sentenced to death.
Before his execution, he left a final note for the girl healed of blindness, urging her to carry the love of Christ into the world. He signed the note Your Valentine. He was killed on Feb. 14, 269 AD or 273 AD, depending on the historian you read.
No one can say how much of the legend is true. But the Christian church established a day to commemorate the faith of St. Valentine in 496 AD, honoring his commitment to Christ and to sharing the love of God. He urged us to love one another as Christ had loved us.
Valentine proclaimed this from 1 John 4:7-9, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.”
We celebrate this love always here at Hosanna Lutheran Church, located at 9601 E. Brown Road. Come join us this week and always.