Homily for December 24, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Luke 2:1-20.
This is the time of year when people travel great distances to visit the people that they love. In today’s world, do we really have to travel? Most of us carry around a little device that enables us to communicate with our family and friends any time. We can text them, we can email them, we can send them pictures, we can call them, we can even have a video chat. Any time at all. We can keep in touch with people both near and far through social media, people who share common interests and goals in life or people who are dear to us.
But there is something special about physical presence. The way we communicate is not really captured by phones or computers. In one study, only 7% of human communication was the words that were spoken, another 38% was tone of voice, and the other 55% was through body language. We’ve all experienced that text messages and emails are misinterpreted, phone calls are often unsatisfying, and even video calls aren’t good enough.
My general experience since the pandemic has been that texts are OK for specific communication or for casual contact, email is good for transferring information, and phone and video are good for maintaining relationships. But when things get hard or when you’re trying to build a new relationship—in the workplace, in your personal life, or whatever—there is no substitute for physical presence. There is no substitute for being together.
I am privileged to be able to live with the person who means the most to me in the world. Sometimes, Rhonda and I drive each other crazy, but that’s the price to pay for a deep emotional connection. The rest of my family is spread across the country—we are all where we belong, but it’s hard to be separated from everyone. Fortunately, I saw some of them at Thanksgiving and will see the rest of them over the coming week.
I can talk to my friends and family who live far away any time I want to. But I can’t hug them, I can’t share a meal with them, I can’t experience that close bond that only emerges when people are gathered together.
God had the same problem. In Genesis and Exodus, God shared a special closeness with humanity in the Garden of Eden, with Abraham, and with Moses. But for the most part, God could not really be with us. God yearned for the intimacy and emotional closeness that comes with physical presence.
And so, Jesus was born. Jesus was God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus was born like every other human so that he could, so that God could experience the close bond between mother and child. Jesus grew up in a village so that God could experience the rhythms of life. Jesus lived among fishermen and tax collectors and Roman soldiers and Pharisees and all other walks of life so that God could experience the fullness of human relationships.
You can’t really learn about relationships by watching them. I mean, when we watch movies and TV shows, we learn something about the human condition and the way some people relate to one another. But there’s a flatness to those experiences because we aren’t really immersed in the situation. Live theater is better, but there is still a “fourth wall” that separates us from the action.
Jesus came to break that fourth wall, to immerse God in the messiness of human relationships. He came to satisfy God’s yearning for a close relationship with all of humanity.
God the Father was overjoyed at the birth of his son, so what did he do? He told everyone he could. He sent angels with a heavenly proclamation to the shepherds. They announced that today, the Messiah has been born. THE Messiah is the Anointed One, the singular person who ushered in a new age. The angels announced that the new age has begun, that THE Messiah has been born. God the Son has come to dwell among God’s people. God will no longer be satisfied with communicating through prophets. God has chosen to be with humanity to experience the joys and sorrows of this life.
Now, the shepherds could have thought, “Cool, the Messiah was born. But he’s just a baby. I’ll get excited when he starts doing something important, like fighting against the Romans or something.” But they didn’t. The shepherds knew intuitively that Jesus’s birth, the coming of the Messiah, God’s presence on earth, was important. They weren’t satisfied with head knowledge. They weren’t satisfied with information. They needed the transformation that comes with bodily knowledge and physical presence.
As I said, communication from a distance is fine for maintaining a relationship, but not for building one. The shepherds heard the announcement that God’s desire for closeness to humanity was so strong that God the Son came to dwell among us in the flesh. That provoked a desire among the shepherds to reciprocate, to seek that same closeness to God. They wanted to build a relationship with God that was closer than they could ever achieve through prayer.
So they rushed to Bethlehem to find Jesus lying in a manger. I can just picture it: Mary is exhausted from labor, Joseph is proud but overwhelmed with his new responsibilities, and here come some smelly, rough men who have been living with the sheep. But they were transformed first by their encounter with the angels, and then by their encounter with the baby Emmanuel, God With Us, the newborn king sent to change the world.
Jesus was born a king, but what kind of king? Tonight’s readings open with a decree from Caesar Augustus that all should be registered. That’s the kind of king that we are used to: when he says “go,” everyone goes. The Roman Empire, along with every empire before or since, was basically built on the threat of violence. What if Joseph had said that he couldn’t travel to Bethlehem because of Mary’s advanced pregnancy? He probably would have been arrested, flogged, beaten, imprisoned.
Is that what God’s kingdom is like? The same violent methods with different goals? No. God’s kingdom is rich relationships and deep love. God’s angel army came down to proclaim the dawning of the messianic age, armed only with love and joy. Jesus’s life was a testament to reconciliation, bringing people in from the margins to be a part of the community, healing the illnesses and moral wounds that kept them separated. Jesus came so that God could be in relationships that can only be built through physical presence, and to institute a kingdom that would be built on those deep connections.
But having taken on human form, Jesus’s life was finite. Even if he hadn’t been crucified, Jesus’s life would some day come to an end, and then God would no longer be able to have that same physical presence. Yet on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came and energized the early Christians and transformed us into Christ’s body. God can still be present in the world through us. We embody God. We are Emmanuel.
And so, we gather this evening. We have heard the proclamation that a child has been born to establish a kingdom of love, a kingdom of reconciliation, a kingdom of rich relationships, a kingdom of abundant life, a kingdom of joy, a kingdom of universal flourishing. We heard God’s proclamation, and so we come to be present with our newborn king. But remember that Jesus was already born 2000 years ago, and so we can encounter God’s presence any time we want. We can communicate with God any time we want, through prayer. But often, that’s about as satisfying as a phone call—good enough to keep a relationship going, but not to build one.
Building a relationship requires coming together, sharing a physical presence. Eating together. Laughing together, crying together. Sharing your lives. Jesus of Nazareth died two millennia ago, but Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. He lives on in his people. Whenever we encounter someone whom God loves, we can encounter God’s real presence. Who does God love? Everyone. Everyone. Everyone you meet can be your connection to God’s divine presence. The people gathered in God’s name are God’s divine presence. The poor, the homeless, the prisoner, the outcast—they are God’s divine presence.
So tonight, welcome into God’s presence. May your eyes be opened to God’s presence in each person you meet, here tonight, as you go to your home or travel to far-off places, and each day as you encounter God’s beloved people in every walk of life. And may your lives be enriched with fulfilling relationships with God’s people, and through them, with the God who desires a deep and loving relationship with you. Amen.
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