Welcome to all of you who have come from the region near Taizé this Christmas night when we are celebrating the nativity of Jesus. With my brothers, we are very glad to welcome you here in the Church of Reconciliation. At the end of the Eucharist, we are going to light our candles with the light that has come from Bethlehem and which is burning in this lantern. Then we will go outside and sing in front of the crib outside the church.

We have just heard the Gospel of the birth of Jesus. It’s a well-known story for many of us, but what does it have to say to us this evening? For me, it is a story that offers us some Christmas gifts. I can think of three gifts that we can receive by listening to it, gifts that God gives to each one of us. Perhaps you will recognise others as you reread the story.

The first gift is “joy”. There are the shepherds; they are not privileged people; they have to spend the night outside with their sheep. To these poor people, the angel, God’s messenger, announces “great joy”, not only for them but for all the people: good news to be shared. The shepherds will in their turn become messengers of God.

This “great joy” will also be the joy of Jesus’ friends at the end of the Gospel. It will fill their hearts after Christ’s death and resurrection. Joy can come to birth when we go through tight places. What is the joy I am receiving these days? How can I share it with others?

The second gift is called “peace”. At the sight of God’s messenger, the shepherds were seized with great fear. We can be taken aback when we realise that God is present. But the angel says: “Do not be afraid”. And then the whole sky sings of the peace that God offers to all the inhabitants of the earth, whom he loves without exception.

The peace that the shepherds receive in their hearts is to shine out around them. One of the early witnesses to Christ said: “Begin the work of peace within yourself so that, once you are at peace, you may bring peace to others”. Thinking about the violence in ourselves, in our societies and in our world, what is my responsibility for of this peace that God announces and entrusts to us?

The third gift I would call “newness”. The birth of Jesus is something completely new in the history of humanity. And the amazing thing for us, as for the shepherds, is that God chooses to meet us at the point where we are. God is no longer far away, but close to us. God is there, very weak, humble and poor in the baby Jesus, dependent on Mary, his mother, on Joseph and the others around him. And he entrusts himself to our care as well.
If something is new, it is often fragile. It needs to be welcomed, cared for and supported. And yet every new thing is part of a story. It is not by chance that Luke begins his account of the birth of Jesus by situating it among the current events of the time. What is new arises in our experience of life as it is lived, an experience in which we are invited to discern the traces of God.

What is the newness that God is asking us to welcome this Christmas night and during this Christmas season? Even if it is fragile, how can we create a space where we can nourish it and let it grow?

Let us welcome these three gifts from God: joy, peace and newness. Then we can then offer them to others too, by the way we live. Maybe this could be the challenge that Christmas presents to us all…

The Christmas Eucharist was broadcast from 8.30pm (Paris time) on the evening of Sunday 24 December.