On this night, which for many of us is an opportunity to gather with family, community, and friends in joy and sharing – even if for some of us it is the first time we are spending this night away from our families – we celebrate the memory of the birth of Jesus. The reading from the prophet Isaiah reminds us of the promise that it is in the middle of the night, in the darkness, that God’s definitive intervention in the history of his people will be revealed.

The sign of God’s intervention announced by the prophet is a child: a newborn who brings light, justice and peace. Elsewhere in the Bible, hope is attached to a king or an adult leader; here, it is expressed in the gift of a birth, of a new life, of someone whose existence is the seed of definitive justice and peace.

This is how tradition has linked this text from the prophet Isaiah to the Good News we have just heard: in the village of Bethlehem, a child, a new life, is given to us. And what happened that night is recounted in contrasting terms in Luke’s Gospel.

The birth of Jesus itself is recounted in an extremely simple manner. In three sentences, everything is said: the time came for Mary to give birth, she gave birth to her child and laid him in a manger. The precariousness of this birth, the poverty of this family, never ceases to amaze us: Jesus is born on the margins, close to the poorest of the people.

And the scene with the shepherds contrasts with this birth: bright light, angels in the sky celebrating. The angel reveals to the shepherds the meaning of this birth on the margins and gives them a sign: a newborn baby, under a precarious shelter – and it is the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, who is there and whom they can come and meet. The shepherds, who know what it means to be marginalized and poor, can recognize the sign. And for them, the angels’ song confirms the words of the psalm: God announces peace to his people, to those close to him.

This is what the coming of the child Jesus means to me: new life is possible within our humanity. To recognize it, our eyes must turn not to the center, but to the margins, for God chooses the poor to make himself present, to reveal himself. For in Jesus, God makes himself present definitively, as “God-with-us”, and then even our poverty becomes an opportunity for encounter.

Let us welcome the peace that comes to us from the memory of Jesus’ birth. Let us welcome the peace that is announced not only to the shepherds but to us as well, and let us be inspired by the way God chooses to reveal himself, so that new life may grow in us and around us.