Mixed feelings this Christmas

These past two months, November and December 2025, have been filled with encouraging and challenging moments in my personal life, which explains the mix of emotions I am experiencing. December hasn’t ended, and I wonder if there will be more surprises or shocks in store.

Similarly, year-end is usually filled with a festive mood of Christmas for most parts of the world, a celebration of a great hope born for Christians or simply happy holidays to wrap up the year for non-believers. Yet, as 2025 is coming to a close, darkness has been intensifying instead of abating in the world — the raging fire burning up lives in Hong Kong, the rampant firing at a Jewish festival in Bondi Beach, and the berserk knife and grenade attack in Taiwan streets. The world has become more unsafe.

This mix of good and bad happened even when Jesus was born. While the greatest light of life was born, death pervaded the country as King Herod ordered the death of all males who were two years old and under. Thus, I have this question: Why did the three wise men visit King Herod to ask for directions when they could have done it without his help? King Herod, in fact, didn’t help and even asked them to report back. Perhaps, the wise men had an approximate direction and assumed the King of the Jews would be found in the palace and thus didn’t seek the “coordinates” to the exact spot initially.

Yet in Matt 2:12a, they were “being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod.” So, why weren’t they divinely directed to Jesus, or warned not to go to King Herod in the first place? When they went to King Herod, it reminded me of this Chinese idiom, “打草惊蛇”, which translates to beat the grass to scare the snake and thus inadvertently alert the snake/enemy. If they had not gone to King Herod, there might not have been the massacre of young innocents because of the king’s insecurities:

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more.”

2 Matthew 2:16-18 (NKJV)

Deep darkness covers the land at the time and place where the Messiah was born. Most people saw only the darkness and crying and wondered where God was in all this. Only a few — the wise men, shepherds, Anna and Simeon saw and knew of the great light that had descended upon the world, the one who would bruise the head of the enemy. Perhaps for these few, they also had a mixed bag of emotions, of despair from the massacre and the hope of Salvation born.

So are we seeing only darkness, or also the light that shines through in the darkness?

Early Christians didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birth, and it was only in the early 4th century that December 25 was adopted as the date. Birthdays reminded me of parties, and thus the parable of the great banquet came to mind:

The Parable of the Great Banquet

But Jesus said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.

And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. …

So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’

And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’

And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Luke 14:16-18a, 21-24 (ESV)

If Christmas celebration is His great banquet and He has invited all to attend, are we making excuses not to go to His “birthday” party to celebrate?

Or is God telling us to go out quickly to bring in the poor, crippled, blind and lame?

Or is He asking us to go everywhere, from busy public roads (highways) and secluded areas (hedges), to urge people to come to Him?

Even as I am on an emotional rollercoaster this season, I know I wouldn’t be thrown off because God is an anchor that remains steadily and consistently good. Even with the mindless killings or the bad reports surfacing here and there, I can take heart in this verse, Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

May the darkness compel people to search for the light and thus hear the good news. Let it truly be the most wonderful time of the year.

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