Legends have occasionally crept into Christian history. Stories of some of the early martyrs handed down orally have sometimes become embellished and romanticized. Such is the story of St. Valentine. Two Valentines are described in the early church, but they likely refer to the same man — a priest in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. According to tradition, Valentine, having been imprisoned and beaten, was beheaded on February 14, 270 A.D., along the Flaminian Way.

Sound romantic? How then did this martyrdom become a day for lovers and flowers, candy, and little poems? According to legends handed down, Valentine undercut an edict of Emperor Claudius. Wanting to recruit soldiers more easily for his army, Claudius had tried to weaken family ties by forbidding marriage. Valentine, ignoring the order, secretly married young couples in the underground church. The activities, when uncovered, led to his arrest.

Furthermore, Valentine had a romantic interest of his own. While in prison he became friends with the jailer’s daughter and being deprived of books he amused himself by cutting shapes in paper and writing notes to her. His last note arrived on the morning of his death and ended with the words “Your Valentine.”

Does any truth lie behind the stories of St. Valentine? Probably. He likely conducted underground weddings and sent notes to the jailer’s daughter. He might have even signed them “Your Valentine.” And he probably died for his faith in Christ. Be he almost certainly didn’t write “Roses are red, violets are blue…

What is true is that Valentine is counted among many martyrs over the centuries because of his faithfulness to Christ. His witness to Christ and courage to preserve family ties ought to encourage us to stand as witnesses regardless of the opposition we may face.

The sixth seal that John saw opened portrays the end. The end of everything as we know it. It is the wrath of God to come on those who have martyred his servants. Far from merely a repeatable judgment in history, like the four horsemen, this judgment includes the dissolution of the heavens and the world finally recognizing that it stands under its Creator’s wrath.

John tells us there was a great earthquake. Ancient writers sometimes depicted earthquakes in exaggerated language declaring they could make mountains collapse. In 1989 when an earthquake struck the bay area of San Francisco, claiming fifty-lives and billions of dollars in property damage, one witness said: “God just clapped his hands.” God may have clapped his hands, but the earthquake John felt in his vision was no ordinary earthquake, it is the climatic end of time earthquake that literally truly removes mountains. There is a final earthquake and terror that awaits the unrepentant world just before the coming of Christ. Yet, God’s faithfulness to his people overshadows any terror of earthquakes. God will vindicate his suffering faithful ones. He will make the world recognize Him as the One they have rejected.

“The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place” (Rev. 12-14).

The discoloration or eclipsing of the sun or moon symbolized terrifying judgments both among Jews and pagans. This no ordinary eclipse, however, together with the stars falling from the sky, they point to the end of the age, when the sun and moon will be darkened. It is physically impossible for all the stars to fall to the earth. They would all have to become black holes to fit on earth, and then trillions of them would have to hurl, at millions of times the speed of light, into the earth’s surface; no one could live long enough to lament their misery as John tells us in v.16-17. What we have is evocative, terrifying images that convey to us that there is no security, no firm ground to stand on, nothing in the universe to depend on except God himself. The rest of creation will collapse.

In the May 1984 issue of National Geographic are photographs and drawings of the swift and terrible destruction that wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 B.C.

The explosion of Mount Vesuvius was so sudden, the residents were killed while in their routine: men and women were at the market, the rich in their luxurious baths, slaves at work. They died amid volcanic ash and superheated gasses. Even family pets suffered the same quick and final fate. It takes little imagination to picture the panic of that terrible day.

The saddest part is these people did not have to die. Scientists confirm what ancient Roman writers record–weeks of rumblings and shakings preceded the actual explosion. Even an ominous plume of smoke was clearly visible from the mountain days before the eruption. If only they had been able to read and respond to Vesuvius’s warning!

There are similar “rumblings” in our world: warfare, earthquakes, the nuclear threat, economic woes, breakdown of the family moral standards, and the Covid-19 pandemic. While not exactly new, these things do point to a coming day of Judgment. People need not be caught unprepared. God warns and provides an escape to those who will heed the rumblings.

How long must we wait? God’s time is not always our time, but even if we do not live to see the fulfillment of all our prayers, we can die in hope that God will bring about the things he has promised. After the cries of the martyrs, God judges the world, despite the arrogant fantasies of his enemies, human power will provide no refuge in that day when the true King executes justice on the entire social order from Caesar on down. Ultimately loyalty to Jesus Christ, not social status determines our fate.

“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15-17).

This image recalls inescapable judgment. The flight of people from God’s wrath in heaven reflect the destruction of the heavens. The image of the cry of the disobedient to God’s will, “Who can stand in the day of wrath?” prepares us for the answer in Revelation 7. The servants of God can stand.

While leading a Bible class on 1 Thessalonians, one of Gregory Fisher’s students asked, “What will he say when he shouts?”

The question took Gregory by surprise. He had already found that West African Bible College students can ask some of the most penetrating questions about minute details of Scripture.

“Reverend, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Christ will descend from heaven with a loud command. I would like to know what that command will be.”

Gregory wanted to leave the question unanswered, to tell him that we must not go beyond what Scripture has revealed, but his mind wandered to an encounter he had earlier in the day with a refugee from the Liberian civil war.

The man, a high school principal, told Gregory how he was apprehended by a two-man death squad. After several hours of terror, as the men described how they would torture and kill him, he narrowly escaped. After hiding in the bush for two days, he was able to find his family and escape to a neighboring country. the escape cost him dearly: two of his children lost their lives. the stark cruelty unleashed on an unsuspecting, undeserving population had touched Gregory deeply.

He also had flashback of the beggars that he passed each morning on his way to the office. Each day he saw how poverty destroys dignity, robs men of the best of what it means to be human, and sometimes substitutes the worst of what it means to be an animal. He was haunted by the vacant eyes of people who have lost all hope.

“Reverend, you have not given me an answer. What will he say?”

The question hadn’t gone away. “Enough,” Gregory said. He will shout, ‘Enough!’ when he returns.”

A look of surprise opened the face of the student. “What do you mean, ‘enough?'”

“Enough suffering. Enough starvation. Enough terror. Enough death. Enough indignity. Enough lives trapped in hopelessness. Enough sickness and disease. Enough time. Enough!

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Rev. Charles Eldredge is pastor of Maitland Church of the Brethren, Lewistown where he is currently serving in his 27th year. He graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in S. Hamilton, Mass.