By Father Casey

There are some things you just can’t do from a distance.

Not long ago, I overheard Melody having one of those dreaded “tech support” conversations with her father. I listened as she patiently recommended all sorts of solutions for his computer-related problem, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, she sighed, and said, “I’m sorry, Daddy, I would like to help you, but I’ve reached the limit of what I can do without being there.” I knew how much she wanted to help, but to do so, it would take more than explanations or descriptions. She was going to need to see and touch the computer. She needed to be there, because there are some things you just can’t do from a distance.

Love is very much one of those things.

Love is like gravity for the soul: it causes us to want to be in the presence of those we love, enjoying their proximity, seeing and touching them. And this isn’t just when times are happy and good. The power of love’s gravity seems to be even stronger when the person we love is suffering. In those moments, love pulls us close in hopes that we can ease their pain, or simply just be near.

Because love is something you can’t do from a distance.

This is what the Incarnation is all about. In the Nativity of Jesus Christ, the love of God entered our world in order to get close to us. God could see all the suffering and pain, all the ways we’d moved away from who we were meant to be, all the lives weighed down by sin, and God could not turn away. Love led God down from the majesty of heaven to a manger in Bethlehem, so that God could be fully with us.

Love. Nothing else can explain it. The kind of love that pulls you close to another in order to ease their suffering, or simply to be with them. God had long loved us from a distance, but the power of Love was fully unlocked when God became close and personal.

Christmas is about the power of love-up-close. Emmanuel. God With Us.

Not, “God Up There Somewhere.”

Not “God Who Visits Occasionally.”

Not “God Who Remembers to Send a Card with a Check.”

God With Us.

Because there are some things you just can’t do from a distance, and loving the world enough to save it is something that takes the full power of God’s holy and merciful proximity.

So may we draw near to the God who has drawn near to us.

May we follow God’s lead and get closer to those we love and those who need our love.

And may we bear more of the Love who came down at Christmas into our weak and weary world.

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