St. Valentine and St. Patrick

I love the stories of St. Valentine and St. Patrick.  I love remembering them on their "day".  But the celebration is always made bittersweet for me by the ironic cultural trappings we have used to surround these days.

About a hundred years after The Apostle Paul's life was ended by the emporer in Rome, there was a priest in Rome by the name of Valentine.  When the emperor banned marriage for soldiers conscripted in the Roman army, Valentine let it be known through the Christian underground that he was willing to perform secret marriages before God for Christian soldiers.  He was eventually discovered, arrested, tried, and the Emperor Claudius took his head (he was a Roman citizen) in the same manner of Paul's execution.  He died for the sake of love. The date of his death was February 14th.  Valentine (later sainted by the church) stood for Christ in a pagan culture, against paganism, for the truth of Jesus Christ.  And how do we remember St. Valentine's Day - the day of this great saint of God in Jesus Christ?  Cupid, pagan god of love.  Cupid was his Roman name.  In the "original" Greek he is Eros, god of erotic love.  St. Valentine stood in the Name of Jesus Christ, the one true God of agape - unconditional God-love.  I Corinthians 13.

Hundreds of years later, a teen named Patrick was at home in the area now France, when he was captured by raiders and taken as a slave to the island of Ireland.  He lived among the pagan people of Ireland for many, many years, his young adulthood, before finally escaping back to his homeland.  But God the Holy Spirit moved on Patrick's Christian (Christ-loving) heart, filling it with love for those who had captured and enslaved (and often brutalized) him.  Patrick became driven to return to the island of his enslavement with the Good News of Jesus Christ, who is The Way, and The Truth, and The Life.  Pouring out his life for the people of Ireland and being "marked for death" more than once, he started over 300 churches in Ireland to the honor and glory of The Name.  He battled paganism and superstition across Ireland.  And how do we remember St. Patrick's Day in our culture?  Leprechauns (and, or course, public drunkenness). 

I love the story of St. Patrick for another important reason.  The Holy Spirit - GOD - drove St. Patrick to Ireland because the people there were NOT OK.  THEY were enslaved in darkness of paganism and superstition, and God would have that end. So God sent Patrick with The Truth about Jesus Christ, the ONLY way to heaven, so that the peoples of Ireland could be welcomed into what really is the one true faith.  Of course there is truth in all religions.  To concede that is to concede nothing.  All other religions are simply in error when in comes to the person, the nature, the work of Jesus Christ.  (I discussed this at some length below in the post on why Jesus really is the only way, and will not repeat it here.)

The point is this.  As the followers of Jesus, until we get that the Good News we have to share can't be gotten anywhere else and can't be given by anyone else (other than the followers) we have not yet begun to do what Jesus commissioned us to do.

Soli Deo Gloria - to God alone be glory.
Blessed St. Patrick's Day. 
(BTW, St. Patrick's Breastplate is pretty easily available online, but if you would like me to send you the very readable and poetic version I discovered and formatted for use in worship and meetings, let me know and I would be happy to send it out.)