Every year at this time I have a mission.
It’s a mission that I do not take lightly.
It is my duty at the beginning of every February to go to every corner, to every hill, to every valley, to every possible place and remind every man I see that Valentine’s Day is near.
Men can remember the date of the Super Bowl in 2006, they know how many home runs Mickey Mantle hit in 1956, and exactly when the oil needs to be changed.
We can remember just about every date and time in the world except for that sneaky little day that comes on the 14th of every February.
So I take it upon myself to remind every man I see that the 14th is near.
I started this mission when I was pretty young. You see my father never could remember Valentine’s day and he would always be in the dog house for at least three days, which was bad for me because supper would always be leftovers.
So, watching out for my stomach, I started to remind him.
But there was one year that my dad stayed out of the dog house. In fact, he sent flowers on my mom’s birthday, on mother’s day, on their anniversary, on valentine’s day, even on Groundhog Day, she received a bouquet of flowers!
And I was happy because we ate pretty good for the whole year!
Well after she received the bouquet of flowers on Valentine’s Day, she became a little suspicious of my father’s recent memory surge and she started to interrogate him.
It didn’t take much for the truth to come out because my dad thought that what he had done was the smartest thing in the world. After she asked two questions, he revealed that went to the florist last year, and told them to send her flowers on every single holiday and their anniversary so he wouldn’t have to remember!
For some reason his great idea didn’t sit too well with mom.
But on the other end of the spectrum, men and women will spend weeks preparing for this one day to show love and affection to one another.
And in some cases, preparing for VD is more important than the actual day! Two weeks ago, Shelley asked me if I had gotten her anything for Valentine’s Day.
And following the same tact that my father enstilled in me, I said, No.
On the radio the other night, I listened as a disgruntled dee jay explained his theory on how Valentine’s day came to be.
He believed with all his heart that Valentine’s day was created by Hallmark so they could sell more greeting cards; so people would buy their cards and express their love in pretty words and poems.
I don’t think the dee jay was right in his opinion, but we will spend millions of dollars buying Valentine’s cards and send them not only to our sweety but our friends and loved ones.
And along with those pretty words wrapped in an envelope, usually will come a box of candy or flowers, or a dinner at a nice restaurant.
Tomorrow schools will be flooded with balloons, and roses that were delivered to the front office. And on Tuesday, little boys will be without little girlfriends if they don’t send balloons and roses to the front office.
There is so much pressure involving those 24 hours on February 14th.
All in the name of Love. After all February 14 is the day of love. If there is not love any other day of the year, there will be love tomorrow.
Can you imagine what life would be like if every day was like February 14? Can you imagine what life would be like if we treated every day as Valentine’s Day?
If everybody treated one another with respect and did nice things for one another, can you imagine?
There is a story that I have told many times, and I never get tired of telling it.
There was a monastery that was deep in the woods on the edge of a beautiful lake.
At one time the monastery was large with over a hundred monks who lived there. And people would come from miles and miles around to see the monastery with it’s beautiful chapel and gardens along the lake.
It was alive and nurturing. But as the years went by, the life began to leave from the monastery.
The monks that were there were getting old and there weren’t any young monks joining the monastery,
And it wasn’t before long there was only six monks living there and they were all over the age of 70.
The monastery was at the point of having to close it’s doors. There was a deep sadness among the six monks at the reality of their dying monastery.
So in desperation one on the monks went to see a wise old rabbi who had a cabin in the same woods as the monastery. The Rabbi was known for his patience and wisdom and the monks had grown to respect and trust him over the years.
So the oldest monk went to see the Rabbi in hopes that he could tell him what to do about their dying monastery.
The old Rabbi heard the monk and thought about the situation that the monastery was in.
He then told the monk to go back to his monastery and tell the other five monks that the messiah is among them.
The old monk was a little confused at what the Rabbi told him, but he trusted his advice and agreed to try what the Rabbi said.
So the monk went back to the monastery and told the other five that the messiah was among them.
The monks were shocked at what they had heard and didn’t know what to think about the fact that the Messiah was among them.
The went back to their rooms and wondered, "who could it be? Which one of us is indeed the Messiah?"
And then an amazing thing happened. Not sure of which one of the monks was the Messiah, they began to treat everyone with such love. They put their fellow monks before themselves and truly cared for another, as they would for the Messiah.
And all of a sudden, life came back to the monastery! The chapel seemed more beautiful, the flowers seemed to have more color.
And before long, word of the love that existed at the monastery spread throughout the nearby towns and cities and people from all over drove to see the six monks at their beautiful monastery in the woods.
There were picnics and families laughing and enjoying one another, loving one another.
And there were men coming from all over who wanted to join the monastery as monks and live in the state of love that thrived there, and the numbers grew from six old monks to over a hundred monks again.
Life was wonderful! The oldest monk went back deep in the woods again to see the old Rabbi and thank him for his wonderful advice! But the old monk still didn’t understand his reasoning for telling the other monks that the Messiah was among them.
The old Rabbi smiled and said "when you love one another, when you truly love one another, not in pretty words or poems, but in actions, when you show your love, the spirit of the Messiah is among you!"
Here the words of Saint John
‘Dear Children, let us not love with words or in tongue but with actions and in truth."
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love, does not know God, because God is love.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his live is made complete in us.
Although we will all spend money on cards with words that eloquently tell of our love and appreciation this Valentine’s Day, let us not only give words to the ones we love, for words are meaningless and fade away and are forgotten,
But let us show our love, let us prove our love in our actions.
But let us not only show our love in actions but in truth as well, let our actions show a love that is truly felt, that truly exists within us.
This Valentine’s Day, let’s move beyond saying how much we love, and lets move to showing how much we love. Not only to our husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or whoever, but to everyone we see. Everyone we come in contact with.
Let love exist between like the love that existed between the monks at the monastery.
When we do this, not only will life thrive, and people will come from miles and miles around, but the Messiah will truly be among us.
For Saint John himself said that No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Personally I think we should all give it a try. I believe that we should start right now and not wait until Valentine’s day to start loving one another. To start showing that we love one another.
Because if we did this, if we truly loved, there would be no more war or
disease, there would be no more AIDS or cancer, the common cold would not exist;
Because all the money that we would spend on bombs and bullets would be spent on medical research and medicines.
People would be happy, people would be safe.
We wouldn’t have to worry about walking out of a mall late at night or locking our doors because crime would be a thing of the past.
It all starts right here. It all starts with how we love one another right here in this family.
It all starts with us having a mission. A mission to remind everyone we see not to forget Valentine’s Day, but not to forget to love one another!
We can’t rely on the florist to remember to do it for us. But flowers will do wonderful things. They will definitely brighten a day. But only love can brighten a life.
Only love can brighten a world and make it complete.
Dear Children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God, Love is God.
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
The Messiah is among us.
In the name of the Father,
And the Son,
And the Holy Spirit, Amen.