How Do You Define Love?

Love… a simple word but such a staggeringly complex idea to put into action. As we approach the fourth Sunday in Advent when we will light the candle of love, let’s consider the necessary components of love.

In the Nativity story, we have a great role model showing us what it means to love someone. Joseph a simple small town carpenter and Jesus’ earthly father, had an opportunity to cut and run when he learned Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant before they “came together”.

We don’t know a lot about Joseph–there are not many Bible verses about him–but what we do know is Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, a small farm town where he made furniture rather than was a builder of houses. That meant he was not particularly high up in the community’s social order so he depended on personal relationships for his income.

I grew up in a small farm town and know how much people can gossip about their neighbors. So Joseph had to be a bit worried about what people would think and how Mary’s situation would affect his business. The Scripture in Matthew tells us Joseph was faithful to the law and did not want to expose her to public disgrace; so he planned to quietly divorce Mary.

So for Joseph, love meant he would protect Mary from public shame. He had to be considering the possibility that Mary had betrayed him and committed adultery. So to act to reduce the gossip, Joseph would have needed to follow the law and do as the Mosaic law commanded for adulterers: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10). So if Joseph followed the law, he would have had Mary put to death.

But Joseph exhibited mercy and sacrificed his public standing in his desire to quietly divorce Mary. Forgiveness and mercy. These are two important components for love that involve thinking more of another than about ourselves. Forgiveness requires a humbleness that says I may not understand your specific situation, but I care enough about you to offer mercy, even if I may not understand everything.

Then the angel comes to Joseph in a dream and tells Joseph to take Mary as his wife because the baby is from the Holy Spirit. Again, Joseph could have completely ignored the angel in his desire to preserve his place in the community. Who would have known about the angel. He could just continue with his plan to divorce Mary.

But again, Joseph shows a high level of humility in his willingness to obey the angel’s words and sacrifice his potential future earnings by marrying Mary. Joseph would go on to make many more sacrifices for Mary, by taking her with him to Bethlehem for the official census, and then by listening to another angel and fleeing to Egypt with Mary and baby Jesus to avoid Herod’s wrath. By doing that, he left behind his friends, his customers, and his family in Nazareth. His sacrifices were built on a faith that allowed him to trust in God’s voice that came to him through angels.

So Joseph’s definition of love would have had to include sacrifice and humility, two things that can be quite challenging for many of us present-day humans to practice in the midst of messages telling us it is weak to put another’s needs above our own.

And yet, we are often mesmerized by news stories of sacrifice and love. I think because in the midst of the darkness and negativity of the world, stories of sacrifice and love bring us a light that gives us hope.

And we need hope and light, especially God’s love and hope that we experience at Christmastime with the birth of Jesus, who would go on to sacrifice his life in a breathtaking act of love. Love is the act of bringing light through sacrifice and humility to others. Throughout his life, Jesus’ humility confounded his disciples. But Jesus was clear on his purpose; he came that people be forgiven and have the hope of abundant life in a close relationship with God.

I think these words from American writer and civil rights worker James Baldwin really sum up this idea:

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.”

As we move into the new year, what can you do to bring more love and light into your relationships with your family and friends, with strangers and those beyond your close circle such as coworkers and neighbors, and with yourself to remember you are a child of God who is worthy of the same love you extend to others.