As we approach the final weeks and months of 2025, we find ourselves in a world that continues to be darkened by pain, suffering and uncertainty. It is a world burdened by wars and buffeted on all sides by a myriad of existential threats.
At the time of this writing, the Russia-Ukraine war, which is now in its third year, continues to rage unabated. After two years of conflict with more than 67,000 Palestinians reported killed, Israel and Hamas have finally agreed to a formal but fragile ceasefire, although the humanitarian crisis remains stark. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, violence escalated in 2025, resulting in 2.1 million Congolese displaced and 21.2 million requiring humanitarian aid.1
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025 characterises ours as a “world of growing divisions” where geopolitical fragmentation, climate-hazards and institutional decay combine to raise the risk of major systemic shocks.2 According to UNICEF, about 2.3 billion people experienced food insecurity in 2024, 336 million more than before the pandemic.3
The dire state of the world that appears to be spiralling into ever-greater chaos questions any talk about hope for the future. This has led to the phenomenon in the United States called the “deaths of despair”—deaths linked to social dislocation, loss of purpose and chronic hopelessness.
The first Christmas was set within the milieu of similar chaos and uncertainty. Israel was subjugated by the superpower of the day, the Roman Empire. Subjected to oppression and fear, the Jews longed for deliverance as they awaited the coming of the Messiah, even though that hope seemed dim and distant.
But Christmas reveals an even more fundamental and profound hopelessness.4
It is the hopelessness of fallen human beings, estranged from their Creator, enslaved by sin and death, and unable to redeem themselves. Writing to the Christians at Ephesus, the apostle Paul expresses this stark truth thus: “… you were at that time separated from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
Yet, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). In the Incarnation, God enters into a world that is ravaged by sin and death, a world that could no longer hope, in order to bring hope.
The familiar lectionary readings for Advent and Christmas proclaim this message with unambiguous clarity.
- “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone” (Isaiah 9:2).
- “And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.’” (Luke 2:10-11).
Amidst the chaos, confusion and sadness of our world, the message of Christmas is clear. God has not abandoned his creation. He has not abandoned those who bear his image. He will accomplish his purpose.
However, there is no triumphalism here. Christmas does not deny the brokenness and despair of our world. Christmas is a defiance of it.
Christmas tells us that the world in which we inhabit is not the world which the Creator has intended it to be. It is a world that is fractured and mutilated by sin. But it is a world which the Creator will restore and renew as its Redeemer.
To ask, “Dare we hope?” is to confront the stark realities of the world. It is also a warning not to “cosmeticise” the evil and horrors that we see, which is a form of unrealism and denial.
Christmas calls us to a deeper confidence, a more profound realism: that God is still at work redeeming, reconciling and restoring the world.
Christmas helps us to answer the question “Dare we hope?” with the certainty of faith. Yes, we dare to hope—not because the world is bright and perfect, but because “the true light that enlightens every man” has come into the world (John 1:9 RSV).
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor of Christian Doctrine at Trinity Theological College and Theological and Research Advisor at the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.
1 “The 10 Worst Humanitarian Crises to Know in 2025,” Concern Worldwide U.S., December 21, 2024, https://concernusa.org/news/worst-humanitarian-crises/.
2 “Global Risks 2025: A World of Growing Divisions,” Global Risks Report 2025 , January 15, 2025, https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2025/in-full/global-risks-2025-a-world-of-growing-divisions-c943fe3ba0/.
3 “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025,” UNICEF, August 8, 2025, https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2025/.
4 Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020).
