No matter where I was in life, no matter if I was "with" someone or not, I've NEVER liked Valentine's Day (and I'm not just being a downer because I don't have someone special to spend it with, I've just never liked the holiday in general). And I've never really been able to put my finger on why, until I heard this sermon excerpt from Matt Chandler. This describes perfectly why I've never been a big fan of this particular holiday. So here's what he says, and this is found before his third sermon in the Colossians series, if you wanted to listen to it... (http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/sermons)
___________________________________________________________
To be real honest with you, I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. It’s not because I don’t
love love. I very much love love. But I think our culture has no idea what it’s
celebrating. It has no real clear definition of “love.” If you’ll pay attention to our
culture, our definition of love can’t be defined outside of self-seeking or “what makes me
happy. . .how does it work for me. . .” So that’s a really lame, weird thing to celebrate.
If the idea is that love is this kind of emotional, stirring, mysterious thing that can attack
you from out of nowhere, that is so powerful that you can’t control it, that’s a dangerous,
terrifying idea. It’s not to be celebrated, honestly. So for those of you romantics who
think it should, let me just say this. Right now, I’m very much in love with Lauren. But
let’s say I go to the store tonight to buy a bag of chips and the baby angel in the diaper
with a weapon pops me in the back, and now all of a sudden I see this other lady and now
she’s the beautiful one, she’s the one that I love. That’s a terrifying idea and not one that
I think should be celebrated.
So I’d like to read a passage out of Song of Solomon 8, starting in verse 6. “Set me as a
seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love [ahava] is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.”
I have been with Lauren for 12 years, and we’ve been married for 10 years. There have
been these moments in our marriage and in our relationship where I thought, “This is a
really cool moment.” And few of those have anything to do with some hyper-emotional,
romantic, violins in the background, good glass of wine, beautiful scenery. Few of them
revolve around that. Honestly, they tend to be a lot more painful than that. I’ll give you
an example from this morning. Our seven-month-old is extremely selfish. I don’t know
if you’ve ever had one of these things, but she’s decided to cut all four of her top teeth
last night. So there was not a lot of sleep happening at the Chandler household last night.
But when they do radiation, specifically in your brain, you only lose hair where they
shoot the radiation. So I’ve got this real weird head thing where this is bald but then this
still grows hair. And I can grow hair like a Chia Pet. I could strain right now and make it
grow. I didn’t shave before I went to bed last night, so I had to get up this morning and
shave. And there are part of my head that I can’t see or reach. So at about 6:45 this
morning, despite the fact that we didn’t sleep much last night, I’m waking up Lauren.
I’m like, “Hey Boo, I need you to shave the back of my head.” To which her response
was, “They can’t see the back of your head.” So I was like, “I know they can’t see the
back of my head, but this can’t happen. You’re going to have to get up.” So Lauren
comes into the bathroom exhausted and shaves the back of my head so I could be pretty
for you. Now, that’s ahava. That’s a love of the will. That’s not, “Oh isn’t this
romantic? I get to get up with my sick husband at 6:45 in the morning after only getting
a couple hours of sleep and shave his radiated head.” But that’s ahava. That’s love.
That is a foundational, deep, full of guts, “I’m not going anywhere” love. That’s to be
celebrated. If we could celebrate that, then I’d be all about Valentine’s Day. But that’s
not what our culture is celebrating. It’s so much more emotive, so much more silly, so
much more hollow, so much more “I like you today. Let’s celebrate that.” So I’m not a
fan. That’s the mini sermon. Now let’s get to Colossians.
______________________________________________________________
P.S. As long as we're celebrating Valentine's Day the right way, I'm ALL for it!
