Archbishop Tapio Luoma’s Christmas Letter 2024

The beginning is important. All that follows is built on it.

We celebrate Christmas because it marks a beginning. Christmas is year zero. It also begins the series of events that laid the foundation for the Christian faith and all the ways of thinking, buildings and symbols that express it.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christmas is a unique moment in the history of the world, when the almighty and eternal God was born at a specific time and place as a small and helpless human being. It was also a completely new beginning for the message of God, through which God wanted to reveal God’s love for the world and humanity. It is a message that we need especially sorely now.

The celebration of Christmas this year also draws attention to the beginning. It is a beginning that once interested only some, but today it is the substance, foundation and starting point of a celebration that billions of people celebrate. Each of us can be part of this celebration.

“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” (1. John. 4:9)

Merry Christmas and may God bless you!

Archbishop Tapio Luoma’s Christmas Letter 2024 (pdf)