Since Valentine’s Day was just this past Friday, I guess as this gets posted to the online Citizen on Sunday, we can still say, “Happy Valentine’s Weekend.”

I love it when a secular holiday intersects with something important in our Christian faith, although two weeks ago when Ground Hog Day fell on Sunday, I did not waste time trying to find a common thread there. I’m curious, did any of your pastors wrap a sermon around Ground Hog Day? Preachers are pretty creative, I know.

And remember, our most dominant holidays in our culture are actually our Christian observances adopted by our culture, Christmas and Easter.

Back to Valentine’s Day and our Christian faith. Perhaps there is no better connection from a secular holiday to our Christian faith than the theme of love prevalent and dominant in both.

Hopefully, you have someone in your life whom you love so deeply and returns love in kind. I hope you exchanged appropriate gifts and sentiments. And I’m sure there were plenty of Valentine exchanges with family and classmates.

I want to point out here that in English we have only one word “love” that is used for a wide variety of feelings that we have for various other people. We “love” our spouse, our family, and our friends, but in distinctively different ways and feelings. Yet, we are restricted to say about each that we “love” them.

In Greek, the original language of the Bible’s New Testament, there are three distinct words for three distinct feelings and actions of love. “Philia” is brotherly love (think Phila-delphia, the city of Brotherly Love), which is the love for family and friends. “Eros” is romantic love, which involves feelings of romance and passion, with the ultimate expression of this love found exclusively in God’s plan for marriage between one man and one woman for life. It’s a beautiful thing. Amen!

However, still the highest level of love is the love that is “agape” (pronounced a-gop’-aye). This is God’s kind of love. It is His way of loving, the perfect way of loving. This is God’s love for us that He gives freely and unconditionally. There is nothing we can do to deserve it, and there is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us. Oh, we can go against God, even turn from God, so He may need to correct us, but He will never stop loving us. He is our model of the Perfect Parent, for sure.

And how do we know this “agape” of God in our lives? We just have to look to Jesus, God’s own Son, whom God the Father sent to give His own life on the cross to forgive us all our sins and be the link that keeps God’s love flowing to us. This is God’s ultimate “agape.”

In 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament, St. Paul describes this “agape,” this perfect love. On the surface it seems to be a call or mandate for people to carry out and live up to. However, if this were the case, every one of us would fail, and fail miserably. What Paul is actually doing here is describing God’s “agape” and affirming the kind of love with which He loves us.

Let me insert God’s name into the passage (verses 4-8) to clarify and make this point.

“God’s love (“agape” throughout this passage) is patient and kind; God’s love does not envy or boast; God’s love is not arrogant or rude. God’s love does not insist on its own way; God’s love is not irritable or resentful; God’s love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but God’s love rejoices in the right. God’s love bears all things, God’s love believes all things, God’s love hopes all things, God’s love endures all things. God’s love never ends.”

Now, that’s perfect love. And God says that’s how He loves us. That’s the love He fills us with, even to overflowing. That’s His love that goes with us all day, every day.

Then what does God say? He says, (using my words, not direct Scripture) “Now, I want your life to be a mirror. I want you to receive my love and then reflect my love (“agape”) to those around you. If you’re a husband, reflect my love to your wife. If you’re a wife, reflect my love to your husband. I want all of you to receive my Love and reflect it in mirror fashion to all your family and to all the world around you.”

We can only declare, “O Lord, let it be so! Let it be so!”

What a timely message in our world of culture wars, broken homes, divisions, and unchecked animosity and hate.

Since its still Valentine’s Weekend, let your mind and heart reflect on this great message from God. Analyze and re-evaluate your relationships. Are you living the “mirror life?” Are you reflecting God-type Valentine love (“agape”) to those closest to you and to those at some intentional distance? What could you do or say yet today to reflect “agape” to your family and your world?

Remember, you don’t have to invent or create this love in order to reflect it. It just comes to you from God through Christ Jesus, free of charge. All you have to do is let it bounce off you and get wrapped around another.

“O Lord, let it be so! Let it be so!” Amen!