Love is…

Valentine’s day is just over the horizon, and love is in the air - a splash of pink and red in the midst of the blues, browns and white(s) of the winter landscape.  I have mixed feelings about the day. Perhaps you do too. 

On the one hand, I have enjoyed it. I loved making valentines for all my classmates in elementary school, and seeing the creativity put into cards and shoe-box receptacles when we were all gathered together. I love seeing the surprising ways love and care erupt on that day between people you would expect and people you wouldn’t. 

Of course, on the other hand, the downsides are legion. For starters the commercialism and profiteering can be obnoxious - an insinuation that love is a commodity to be bought, sold and balanced in the register, and that if you truly love someone you should hand over a bunch of money to a third party to prove it. Then there’s the endless one-upmanship - with carefully curated displays that turn care into a competition. Or the exclusivity of the day which highlights what some of us have and what some of us long for, but simply don’t have.

Valentine’s is indeed a mixed day.  But at the end of the day, I am glad that we celebrate, if for no other reason than that for a day we collectively take a step back and consider this thing called “love”, and its place in our world and in our lives.

A couple of Sundays ago the lectionary gave us an opportunity to hear Paul’s poetic reflection on love in First Corinthians.  As overused as it may be, I love this chapter. (Chapter 13, if you are wondering!) I love how it names what love is, and what heroism and glory are without it. I love how, in the face of a world saturated by egotism and commercialism, it names clearly what love is not, and challenges each of us to consider where we as individuals and a society have missed the mark.  But most of all, I love how it points to love’s enduring power.  Love is. 

It was there when God created all that we know, and it will be there in the end when God wipes every tear from our eyes.  Love endures through our flipping and flailing, through our boasting and failing  and will not be bent out of shape by our brokenness.  Love has known us fully the mess of saint and sinner that we are, and in Christ, has claimed us and made a home for us in eternity.  That is a love that we get to share that is greater than anything we could ever muster - a love that is for us, and our loved ones, and those we can’t stand.  That is a love that calls us to be a part of God’s care in this good and broken world, not for our salvation, but because it is good for us and our neighbors.  

Love is. And at the end of the day it is, and will always be, for you and me and all this hurting world that God so loves.  That’s something to celebrate on February 14th and all year long.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Grant Applehans
Associate to the Bishop
Director for Evangelical Mission