Mark 13

An Old Valentine

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. Mark 13:31.

Long ago boys and girls, and sometimes even grown-up people, used to count the fourteenth day of February as a special day in the year. They looked for the postman in the morning, because they expected their best friends to send them valentines.

Your impression of a valentine may be that of a cheap, comic picture. But some of us have a faint recollection of the time when a valentine, instead of being comic, often conveyed a beautiful message.

The custom of sending valentines is a very old one. It began in superstition, as early as the fifteenth century. A company of people gathered together on the fourteenth of February, the day on which the birds were supposed to find their mates, and the names of a select number of one sex were, by an equal number of the other, put into some vessel; after that every one drew a name, which for the time being they called their valentine; and they looked upon the drawing of that name as an omen that one day they would love each other. Later, valentines became a medium simply to convey thoughts of love; and it is about a valentine of this kind that I want to speak.

I found it at the breaking-up of a family home. It lay at the bottom of an old work-box. Though faded with age, it must one day have been a dainty thing. Round the edge the paper was embossed, so that it looked like fine lace. I cannot say that the picture adorning it attracted me much, but the words, written in very delicate and old-fashioned penmanship, did:

This little tribute which I send,

I hope you will receive,

And keep it for the sake of one

Who never will deceive.

They seemed to bring a resurrection of lives that had been lived long ago. The little valentine itself was apparently a treasure. One person had loved another very much; perhaps each had loved the other. They had at least been friends. Had their friendship gone for nothing? We cannot tell.

I want you to think about the last line of this old rhyme one “who never will deceive.” Isn't that just a description of Jesus? Sometimes our earthly friends deceive us, but Jesus never does. He knew what true love meant; He knew about the keeping of promises; He knew about you and me; and He left us this wonderful promise: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” When He spoke them, I believe His audience would hardly grasp their meaning. They were just obscure, commonplace men. Jesus Himself was known as a working man. Yet He said, “ My words shall not pass.”

Think what that means, boys and girls. The hills that we call “everlasting” will pass away, and our friends will die, but the things that Jesus has said about life and death will remain for ever and ever. Great philosophers lived before He came to earth. They had the best education that Greece and Rome could give; but where is their influence now? As a power to make people live better lives, it is gone.

The story of the religion of Jesus Christ reads like the story of a wonderful miracle. His words have helped the very best people in the world for over nineteen hundred years. And they were written for you. You have them in your Testament. They are about things that abide for ever; they are about love and eternal life. Let each boy and girl think of the New Testament as being the gift of Someone who loves them, and who has said that His is a love that will never change. As I repeat this old, old truth once again, in all reverence I quote the words of the faded valentine:

This little tribute which I send,

I hope you will receive,

And keep it for the sake of One

Who never will deceive.