I want everything to be okay!
12.12.2025
Archbishop Tapio Luoma’s Christmas Letter 2025
I want everything to be okay – in my own life and in the lives of my loved ones. I want everything to be okay for everyone everywhere!
The human yearning for tranquility and peace is always present. Life tests us in many ways, and our worries tend to follow one another. Every day is about survival for some; smaller setbacks bring grief and sorrow to others. It may be the case that no one gets by with less.
“I want everything to be okay!” is a prayerlike sigh that expresses our yearning for rest, reconciliation and peace. It can also be considered an essential part of our own Christmas celebrations. We expect rest, peace, harmony and a lessening of tension from Christendom’s great feast. We hear about them in countless Christmas carols and all the little things we use to create a Christmas atmosphere.
“I want everything to be okay!” Those words also express the yearning of the characters in the Christmas gospel. Joseph and Mary had much to worry about on their arduous journey to Bethlehem, where they might well find the difficulties would continue. Similarly, the shepherds might well have sighed as they guarded their flocks against the ceaseless threat of wild animals during the night.
“I want everything to be okay!” The birth of Jesus was God’s answer to human yearning. Through that birth God became one of us to experience human life and feel the yearning that wants everything to be okay. The birth of Jesus did not expunge the realities of life that Mary and Joseph and the shepherds would later face. Nor did it expunge the causes of the worry and anxiety they would continue to experience. However, when Jesus was born, they received a promise: your yearning has been heard. God is close to you in your life, whatever happens.
“I want everything to be okay!” Our yearning for rest, harmony and peace, as well as God’s expression of love in the newborn Jesus, are summed up in the angels’ song of praise:
Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours! (Luke 2:14)
I wish you a happy and blessed Christmas!