Although we think of Valentine’s Day as a lovey-dovey day for exchanging love letters, flowers, and candy, the origin is a little darker than you would think. Some traditions believe that Valentinus lived in the Roman Empire during the rule of Emperor Claudius II (aka “Claudius the Cruel”) and that he was executed for secretly performing marriage ceremonies for Roman soldiers. Claudius was having trouble recruiting enough soldiers to fight for him, and he believed it was because they didn’t want to leave their loved ones. So he banned marriage before military service. It amazes me to think that he actually thought he could stop love, but what Claudius didn’t realize is that some would die for love.
There is something profound about Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday falling on the same day this year. On the day that we hear phrases like, “I love you” and “Be mine” we will also hear, “From dust you came and to dust you will return.” I wonder how many people will go out on dates with a sooty cross on their forehead. Probably not many. Because when we’re in love, we don’t want to think about death. We want to bask in the excitement of the warm and fuzzy and not think about the end. But in reality, love and death are intertwined. They are inextricable, like wheat and weeds growing together in one field.
In the marriage ceremony, the couple promises to be together “until death parts us,” but nobody really hears that part when the bride’s dress is sparkling, the flowers are fresh, faces all wear bright smiles, and the only tears are tears of joy.
Two names that are synonymous with love are Romeo and Juliet. How many songs can you think of that use these names to reflect quintessential love … and yet, their love story ends in tragedy.
My husband has been reading some of Shakespeare’s plays lately, and one day he left The Complete Works of William Shakespeare lying out on the counter. I thought I would make him and the kids laugh by reading the prologue to Romeo and Juliet in a very dramatic voice (and with the worst accent you’ve ever heard): “Two households! Both alike in dignity! In fair Verona, where we lay our scene!” Everyone in the room just continued doing their own thing, barely even looking up at my stunning performance, much less letting out a laugh. So I continued, but a little more to myself this time. And what I read shocked me. I was embarrassed to admit my lack of memory on this very important detail of this very famous play of which I share a name: Shakespeare spoils the ending of the play four times in the prologue. In case you missed this in your high school English class too, take a look!
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which but their children’s end naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend.
Shakespeare must have known that the audience would miss all of the pertinent information in the prologue due to the excitement of a performance beginning. The last line says, “What here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend.” In other words, “You’re not hearing a word I’m saying right now, so just watch the play.” Just like the marriage vows, we consciously or unconsciously block out any tragic end to a beautiful love story we are witnessing.
Like Shakespeare, Jesus knew that when he told his disciples about his death, it wasn’t really sinking in. He would need to show them what they could not understand, and his “toil [would] strive to mend.” There are certain tragedies that we can never understand until we have actually experienced them. We can remind ourselves that our loved ones will die one day, but until it happens, we can’t know the weight of it. It was hard for the disciples to believe that their rabbi would die and rise from the dead, even though he predicted it multiple times (Mt 16:21-23, 17:22-23, 20:17-19 — all three of these examples in Matthew are also in the books of Mark and Luke).
It’s possible that the reason the disciples had such a difficult time understanding Jesus’ predictions about his death and resurrection is simply because they had never experienced anything like it in the past. Or they may have been in denial. They loved him so much that they couldn’t think of that end for him. Or even more likely, they didn’t want to accept what he was saying because they didn’t accept the reason for his death. They thought God’s kingdom could come by less drastic measures. They thought that following God’s law and the messiah bringing justice through power would be the solution. Their messiah dying did not make one ounce of sense to them … until it happened. The disciples also failed to comprehend the other even more important spoiler that Jesus gave — that his death would not be the end and that he would live again so that all of them would also have life. Again, it was only after it happened that his words sank in: “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken” (Jn 2:22).
This brings me back to the other very important spoiler in the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, which is how plainly it describes what the lovers’ death accomplished. Did you see it? Their death would “bury their parents’ strife,” and only through their children’s end could their rage be removed.
What was it about their death that brought reconciliation? There were plenty of other deaths that could have ended their fighting. The two households had a history of an eye-for-an-eye mode of revenge. In the play, Tybalt (a Capulet) kills Mercutio (a Montague). And so Romeo takes justice into his own hands and kills Tybalt. Why don’t these two deaths bring reconciliation? They only seem to fuel the rage and leave no one satisfied. Romeo is exiled for his crime, a punishment that is unsatisfying to both sides, because justice can only take you so far.
What ultimately brings an end to the rage and the hate is not death in itself, but sacrificial death intertwined with undying love. That is what brings reconciliation.
This sacrificial and undying love is what Christ has for the world. God was not satisfied with the endless cycle of hate and death in his creation. He knew that it would take something drastic, something tragic. This kind of sacrifice causes us to say, “Why?” Like the audience of Romeo and Juliet, we cry out, “Isn’t there another way? Why does it have to end like that?”
But unlike Romeo and Juliet, this fabled love story is no tragedy; its ending was just the beginning. Just as a dying seed would produce new life, the grave stone would be rolled back. This kind of love is unstoppable, stronger than a Roman Emperor, a pair of feuding families, sin, lost love, even death itself.
