A baby born in a manger , a carpenter's son, a wanderer whose friends were fishermen and sinners, a blasphemer mocked, mistreated, and crucified to death—these are the faces of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the world, from the beginning to the end of his earthly life. What does this choice of God to incarnate himself in these aspects of weakness, poverty, and defeat, which inspire rejection, contempt, and discouragement, tell us?

If God chose to become incarnate in this humble exterior, He undoubtedly wants to remind us that it is our inner being that matters in His eyes (1 Samuel 16:7). Indeed, our heart is the temple where God dwells and desires to meet us. All the value of our person resides in our heart; therefore, whatever our outward appearance or circumstances, we have the same value because God dwells within us all. However, it is up to each of us not to tarnish this value by remaining in God. Moreover, God wants to show us His special love for the poor, the weak, and sinners. He proclaims the poor blessed (Luke 6:20), even the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). He declares that He came for the sick and sinners (Mark 2:17) and that tax collectors and prostitutes even precede those who consider themselves righteous in the kingdom of God (Matthew 21:31). Thus, Jesus teaches us not to judge anyone, to have compassion for the weak, the poor, the marginalized, etc., and to come to their aid.

God also invites us to re-examine how we judge what is good and what is evil. The power and wealth we often seek can ensure a successful worldly life. However, they can also distract us from the spiritual life, and therefore from our need for God, who is, after all, the Giver of this power and wealth. No longer seeing God's place in our lives, which should be first in the established order, we easily elevate ourselves to God to establish our own standards of judgment, to which we subject everything. This distances us even further from God, even setting us against Him. On the other hand, weakness and poverty place us in a situation where it is impossible for us to rely on ourselves, and consequently, it is easier for us to turn to God.

However, for weakness and poverty to become opportunities for encounter, conversion, and ultimately, grace, we must be humble enough to accept them within ourselves. For it is by being aware that there are "voids" within us that only God can fill that we can draw God's grace upon us by asking Him for it. Weakness, poverty, and defeat can thus lead to humility, which is the opposite of pride and which opens all doors to the heart of God. Indeed, God loves the humble, not because He is pleased that we humble ourselves before Him, but because it is in this way that He can save us, for we show Him that we recognize Him as the Father in whom we trust, and that He has our "permission" to intervene in our lives.

Let us prepare our hearts to welcome the Emmanuel who is coming and ask God to make us enter into his vision and that the Child Jesus in the manger draws us towards what is weak and poor and that we may be humble like Him, for it is in this way that He is in constant relationship with his Father.