Last Epiphany

Today marks the celebration of Valentinus of Rome, Saint Valentine as we call him. Valentine was a physician and a member of the clergy during the time of the Roman Empire. We know him, of course, as the patron saint of love and marriage. He was best known for his ministry to persecuted Christians, allowing them to marry in secret after Emperor Claudius Gothicus banned marriages during wartime to encourage men to battle. But Valentine was also known as a healer and comforter to the sick, those ill from plague, fainting, epilepsy, and other disorders. He was killed, martyred, on February 14 in the year 269.

One interesting story about Valentine had to do with the healing of an aristocrat’s daughter while he was in custody after his arrest. Valentine told his jailor Asterius how Christ leads pagans out of the shadow of darkness and into the light of truth and salvation. So Asterius told him, if he could heal his foster daughter from blindness, he would convert. Valentine covered the girl’s eyes with his hands and said, “Lord Jesus Christ, en-lighten your handmaid, because you are God, the True Light.” At that, the child regained her sight. Asterius and his family were baptized according to their agreement, but when the Emperor heard the news, he ordered them all to be executed.

An embellishment to this account states that before his execution, Valentine wrote a note to Asterius’s daughter signed “from your Valentine,” which is said to have inspired today’s romantic missives.

Love has always been a two-edged sword.

All of you who have been in relationships know that love is a risk. Those who have read the drama of “Romeo and Juliet” know the perils of being in love with the “wrong” or “socially

unaccepted” person. All of you know how risky it is to be vulnerable to another human being, to let someone in, to take an emotional risk that will change you and expect something from you.

But even more risky than romantic love is what Christians call “agape” love, love for brotherhood and sisterhood, human bonded love for each other that rises above all disagreements, differences, politics, and even illness. Love that rises above fear.

Fear is nearly always the source of division between people. Fear drives quests for power and prestige, status and competition. Fear drives avoidance and bias of people who are different from those we are used to being with. Fear drives people to treat others with disdain. Fear of loss, fear of change, fear of others through envy, jealousy, or ego are almost always responsible for our inability to love on a deeply human basis.

But as Jesus showed us from his own ministry, love, true love, comes from God. And if we want to be lovers of humanity, we must first be in love with God, allowing God to shine God’s love through us. That is the ultimate emotional and spiritual risk. For it involves letting go of our own control and even our own conceptions of who God is, and our ability to make our own way and create our own joy.

We need to allow God in. As Valentine exemplified in his healing, we need to allow Jesus to shine His holy light into our lives and hearts, so that our very souls are transfigured into a vehicle and a beacon of His light and hope. To be the hands and feet of God, to be Christian healers and disciples and apostles to a world in pain, a world that struggles to love, we need to pull ourselves back, and allow Jesus instead to shine.

When we are “in love” with someone, we call that “having our heads in the clouds.” It’s not exactly a compliment in our culture, for when you have your head in the clouds, it means you

aren’t really paying attention to what’s going on around you. You’re just stuck in your own cloud with your visions and thoughts of your beloved. But watching someone “with their head in the clouds” makes us smile, because it reminds us of how amazing and joyful love can feel. And we know that we’ve all been there at one time or another. For me, it was the year 1986. That’s when I met Jeanette in February, began dating her in March, got engaged in July, and married in November. As Charley Pride used to sing, we were “high on a mountain of love.”

But in every love story, there’s a time when we all have to come back to earth, to step out of the clouds and deal with real issues of life, the real issues of relationship, and the hard work at times of loving when loving is hard.

We don’t stay in the clouds. But the cloud was an important step to bonding for us in love. Those who have a strong loving connection prevail against whatever comes their way. Those whose connections are weak will falter, and love will seem to slip away.

Strong connections flourish at first in the clouds. Our love for Jesus too is fed and flourishes first in the divine cloud of mystery, of faith, and of transfiguring grace.

In today’s Gospel, we see Peter, James, and John, three of Jesus’ most devoted disciples with him on a mountain high above the ground. There, the three watch as Jesus is bathed in brilliant, dazzling light. He is transfigured. Then, a cloud comes over Jesus as he is speaking to Elijah and Moses, and the voice of God speaks to all saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

The disciples’ hearts must have been pounding. Their minds must have been reeling. Imagine the intensity of that experience, the magnitude, the divine brilliance, the breathtaking light, the mystery, and the joy!

On that mountain, they experienced a vision of God, of divine presence and power that they would never forget. It changed them, and it would transfigure their own hearts and their ministry to come.

After that experience, they came down from the mountain and engaged in ministry and mission, even more convinced that what they were doing was infused with the love and power of God, even as Jesus was God beside them and among them.

We all need visionary moments with Jesus. Sometimes those “mountaintop” moments for us may come during prayer, during Holy Communion, during meditation, or even during an encounter with someone we’ve never met before. Those moments are God encounters, divine soul-transfiguring events that mold us and change us, infuse us with zeal for God’s mission and love for God’s people.

We don’t stay on the mountain. We don’t stay in the clouds. But Jesus does stay within us and beside us, as we go out to minister to real people with real problems in real places.

Christian love is transfiguring love. The love of Jesus, the sacrificial grace of Jesus changes us in ways that are powerful and intrinsic. We become spiritually strong. We become loving and healing vehicles of Jesus’ salvation and grace.

As disciples, all of us were meant to be healers, holy physicians of God’s salvation promise. We comfort the ill. We feed the hungry. We befriend the lonely. We love the unlovable.

And when we do, Jesus’ transfiguring grace transfigures them, too.

Today, may the light of Jesus enlighten your life and your spirit, and may you too become a beacon of light in the world. Be brave. Be bold. Most of all, be love.