It’s my 40th Valentine’s Day. And I’m single.

I’ve been part of the dreamy teenager, hopeful teenager and cynical teenager crowds at Valentine’s. Same in my early to mid-twenties. Then at some point I joined the depressed, jaded, I’ve-been-disappointed-too-many-times, spending-Valentines’s-in-my-pyjamas-in-front-of-the-telly-with-crisps-and-chocolate young woman crowd. From there I moved on to the cynical, protesting Valentines Day, “Valentines Day is for losers,” “who needs men anyway?“crowd. And then I finally grew up and joined my other single friends in the “We are quite happy being single so we are going to proudly celebrate our singleness all together as friends on Valentines Day as a statement to the world of our deep security and sense of completeness without a significant other” camp. We all knew it was a load of rubbish though.

This year I find my reflections on Valentine’s Day taking a very different turn. Perhaps it’s because I really am growing up finally (this is where my closest friends laugh out loud and say ‘Never going to happen!‘), or maybe it’s just that as Jesus has drawn me closer to His heart and I find myself longing more and more for all that is true, authentic, rooted and steadfast, I am no longer captivated by what our Western culture calls “Valentine’s Day” and all that it has come to represent.

We all know (or kind of know) that Valentine’s Day is supposedly named after an old saint named Valentine. And from that one bit of fact, there are probably hundreds of theories, stories, myths, legends, and literal fairy tales surrounding St. Valentine and the Roman practices and rituals around that same era that all contribute to this day we now celebrate with tin-wrapped cheap chocolates, un-naturally red roses that cost amorous wooers the same as their entire month’s food shop, cheesy cards that say things we would never say any other day of the year, and not to mention the stress and worry.

Historians can’t be entirely certain just which of the three St. Valentines in history is the one specifically connected to Valentine’s Day. But all three of these saints had one thing in common – great, deep, passionate, steadfast love.

Not the kind of love that we typically associate with Valentine’s Day: romantic, butterflies-in-the-tummy, candle-lit dinners, poetic words, gazing deep into each other’s eyes kind of love that actually is also easily offended and hurt, ebbs and flows in strength, can be selfish as much as it can be selfless, fades as well grows, and often feels more like a bumpy road than a flower-studded path.

The love that these three St. Valentines expressed was the kind that Jesus spoke of in John 15:13, ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’

Each one of them spent their life caring for others. One of them was not only a priest but a physician. They all cared for and did what they could to help the persecuted Church. And for this, each one of them was captured, imprisoned, tortured to try and force them to recant their faith in Christ, then when they refused, murdered.

The brilliant light of their love for Jesus and for others causes the cheap ways in which we celebrate in their names to dull and to me, even become ugly.

It almost makes me want to join the “Protesting Valentine’s Day” crowd again.

But then I remember the One who lead in the example of the greatest act of love. And I think of all the bits of Scripture that exhort us to love like Jesus:

‘My command is this: love each other as I have loved you…’ John 15:12

‘Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honour.’ Romans 12:10

‘…use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.’ Galatians 5:13 -The Msg

‘Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it.’ 1 Peter 1:22 – The Msg

‘And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.’ 1 John 3:23

‘My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!’ 1 John 4:11,12

Jesus has called us to live out the kind of love that looks like Him in our every day lives. So I started thinking: what if rather than protesting Valentine’s Day, I found ways of celebrating it that look like Jesus?

What if we, as followers of Jesus, redeemed Valentine’s Day by not making it about us but making it about Him and about others? By making it about a kind of love that is lasting, eternal, rooted, steadfast and full of hope?

What if, instead of bemoaning the fact that we’re single and have no one to send us flowers, we instead anonymously have flowers delivered to a neighbour who recently lost her husband of 42 years? What if we gave a cheesy Valentine’s Day card and box of chocolates to a rough sleeper and told them they are valued? What if those of us who are blessed with a partner, thought of something personal and creative to show the depth of our love yet intentionally avoided the consumerism of this day? What if we cooked a simple meal and invited those who are lonely round for an evening of games and laughter?

What could it look like to redeem Valentine’s Day so that it began to look a little bit more like that great Love that was represented through the lives and deaths of these three saints called Valentine?

Will you join me in a Valentine’s Day revolution?