Readings for February 14, 2010
The roots of Valentine’s Day are hazy and obscure – the day has more cache as a Hallmark holiday than anything else. Wikipedia says there were a host of early Christian martyrs named Valentine – probably Feb 14 was chosen in honour of a priest who died in 270 and was canonized in 475 … but there was no connection between that Valentine (or any other) and romantic love till the time of Chaucer (1382). Giving “valentines” to one’s lover became very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has become overly commercialized and sentimentalized since then. Historically we’re on very very shaky ground here!
For me Valentine’s Day conjures up memories of cartoon character cut-outs shared at school – when it was necessary to give “a valentine” to everybody in the class – which always seemed to rob the whole experience of any meaning. After all, if everyone is your valentine, does that mean that you have a “special” relationship with nobody?
For adults Valentine’s Day is a double-edged sword – largely because our intimate relationships are the things that can bring both the greatest joy and the greatest pain to our lives. For those in an intimate relationship that truly feeds their souls, it’s a joyful opportunity to celebrate that. For those who long to be but aren’t; for those who used to be and are no longer; for those whose “valentine” has died, or left them, or hurt them, or abused them … this is a day to avoid at all costs.
On this day, of all days, we’re invited to read the story of the Transfiguration, and the story of Moses with the stone tablets in his hands and his face shining with the glory of God. The connection is accidental – the Lectionary writers didn’t intend to make us read these texts on Valentine’s Day – but it’s an interesting coincidence.
It’s interesting because Valentine’s Day reminds me of how powerfully love transforms us when it’s present and pure; how powerfully we long for it when it’s absent or broken or perverted. Is the Transfiguration of Jesus somewhat akin to the way that young lovers “glow” with the excitement of new love? Is the glory on Moses’ face somehow similar to the radiance we experience when we feel deeply and truly known and appreciated and delighted in? Is the common human experience that gets so sentimentalized or trivialized on Valentines’ Day actually itself a pale copy of an even deeper encounter with the Source of Love and Radiance and Delight? Can it be that human beings are invited into a relationship with the Divine that has the power to draw us into something transcendent and breath-taking?
In a way God is sending a Valentine to the world, in both the story of Moses and the story of Jesus transfigured. In each case, God reaches through the barrier that separates us from the Divine; in each case there is light and joy and hope that comes from being met and known so deeply; in each case God says to the people around those remarkable leaders, “Will you be mine?”