This month is the month February in the western calendar, and it is a special month. It is special because it is the shortest month with normally only 28 days but this year 2024 is a leap year so it has an additional day in it. This happens every 4 years so as to keep our calendar aligned with the rotation of the earth around the sun an extra day is added in the month of February. It is also special because it is often a month where couples express their love by flowers, cards, chocolates or engagement rings. It is a time when many people get engaged, nearly half a million couples got engaged in the USA on 14th February in 2020. The actual date originated as a Christian feast day honouring a martyr named Valentine and through later folk traditions, it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world. At the time of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s writing in the 1400’s, February 14th also happened to be considered the first day of spring in Britain, because it was the beginning of birds’ mating season so a perfectly appropriate occasion for a celebration of affection. In fact, Chaucer’s “The Parliament of Fowls” is all about birds gathering to choose their mates. This is a possibly the reason why the symbol of lovebirds is associated with the date. These birds are known for their strong bonds, they mate for life and are monogamous. Their bonds are so strong that if a pair is separated, the physical and mental health of both birds will suffer. As a result when people today, think of the month of February they associate it with love.
The Bible speaks about a greater love, of God towards a sinful people. In the first letter of John chapter 4 verse 1 says, ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’ The Holy Scriptures teach us that by birth and nature, none of us loved God. Yet, the true and living God loved us. He set His love upon His people and commendeth His love towards us while we were yet sinners. Because of God’s eternal plan and everlasting love for His people, it meant, He sent His Son to this world. The letter to the Galatians 4 verse 4 reads ‘But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,’. And that love was expressed by the Saviour Jesus Christ taking our guilty place at Calvary to bear the punishment of our sin in His own body. By His once for all sacrifice on the cross, he turned away God’s wrath that was our due. This is the greatest expression of love that can be found. 1 John 3 v 1 states ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.’ What a marvellous demonstration of his love to men, when because of sin and rebellion, they had turned away from him yet he still loves them. This is a true and abiding love, one that will not end. February comes but once a year, yet the love of God is eternal and nothing is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And as guilty sinners, we can know the blessing of sins forgiven today, by accepting Christ as our personal Saviour.
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