The theme of this Sunday, the fourth Sunday of advent is love. Love is always a popular theme and indeed many songs are written about love. However, because it is used so widely, the meaning of love can become a bit blurred. I couldn’t help but laugh one day as I sat in my car listening to the radio and the song, “Where is the love,” was followed immediately by the song, “I hate everything about you.”
It is helpful to remember that true love means seeking to fulfil the needs of someone else beyond that of our own. True love has much more to do with our actions than it does with our emotions. Consider the words of C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity:
“Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”
In our Gospel reading today we see Joseph’s love for Mary. Discovering that Mary was pregnant and not by him, the easiest way to protect his own honour would have been to publicly denounce Mary. This most likely would have been fatal for her but at least Joseph would be alright. However, because of his love for Mary he sought to protect her from disgrace by privately divorcing her. His encounter with the angle strengthened his resolve even more to love Mary by staying by her side.
The call of love on our lives is to continue look beyond ourselves and seek the strength of the Holy Spirit that our lives may reflect the words of Romans 5:8, that, “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”