Christian Living

It's Not About The Fizzle

by Jeff Drinnan
02/12/22
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The Valentine's Day hype, along with the crass commerical interests, has been ramping up leading to the day of love, a day to celebrate romantic love between a guy and a gal. There's the image of Cubid shooting an arrow into hearts to make people fall in love.

Cupid shooting the arrow to cause effervescent feelings is analogous to the ancient Roman myth "The Aeneid", where Aeneas falls in love with Dido, the queen of Carthage. There is a romantic scene in the epic poem in a cave, as the couple fall into each other's arms, triggered by a spell cast on them by the gods. Greatly enamored with her lover, Dido doesn't want Annieus to leave. He, however, sneaks out of the cave during the night; he had to move on to found Rome. This was just a one night's stand of sorts and, to say the least, Dido's heart was broken when her lover left (breaking up is hard to do.)

Cupid, in classical mythology, means "passonate desire". He is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. Cupid is a latin byword for Amor, from which we get the word "amore", the thing which Dean Martin said in song that happens when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.

There are different kinds of love. Different than love of desire or the erotic kind of love is agape, which Christ has shown us. It's an unconditional love - nothing is expected in return, no quid pro quo.

Love based on desire and attraction alone is not a good foundation for a love relationship between and man and a woman. Each partner should have not only his or her own interests at heart, but the best interests of the other. Emotion can't stand on its own. There must be something on which it is based. A few years back a woman said that in a romantic relationship, "the fizzle doesn't last." There has to be something more than those effervecent feelings and a physical relationship.

That something more is God, who empowers people to love one another, in a marriage until death do they part, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

The husband is the head of the house, not to boss his wife around, but to care for her, love her the way Christ loves the church. "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot of wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. " -Ephesians 5:25-27.

Love isn't just a feeling; it's a choice! A choice to be committed to someone of the opposite sex to share and work through together the good and bad times and put the other person first. This, of course, is through a common faith in Christ who is the ultimate, selfless love.

My grandmother used to say that grandpop was the head of the house, but she's the neck that turns the head.

St. Valentine, the guy the celebration is named after, protected the institution of marriage from the evil Roman emperor Claudius. Valentine married couples against the ruler's edict. He also befriended a judge and healed the judge's daughter. The judge and his daughter became Christians. Valentine wrote to the judge's daughter and signed it "Your Valentine", hence the name of the tradition.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." -1 Corinthians 13:1