Christmas, Death, and the Courage to Let Go

tonytangebirah
Dec 28, 2025
5 min read

Carravagio’s famous painting of St. Jerome at his desk with books and a human skull. It seems ghoulish to our modern sensibilities, but it is a memento mori, Latin for “remember death.” Like the sand trickling through an hour glass or the wax burning down on a candle, the days of your life are passing by. Soon, death will come knocking on your door.

Memento mori. Remember that you must die.

Those words have never been too distant to me.

As a funeral minister, death is not an abstract idea or a once-in-a-while interruption to life.

It is something I encounter regularly—standing beside grieving families, praying final commendations, watching love express itself through tears, silence, and surrender.

Death has been in my face for some time, quietly reminding me of what truly matters.

Perhaps because of this, it has gradually given me a different lens through which I now see Christmas.

Not just as a season of joy and celebration—but as one that invites us to reflect honestly on mortality, detachment, and how prepared our hearts truly are for the day we must let go of everything.

The image of the Christ Child lying in a manger—really a cave, cold and dark—has taken on deeper meaning. Scripture tells us plainly: “There was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

God enters the world already rejected, already poor, already exposed. From the moment of His birth, the Cross is never far away.

Christmas and death are not opposites. They are deeply intertwined.

Learning To Die A Little Each Day

In many ways, Advent and Christmas is a quiet pilgrimage into death—not a morbid one, but a profoundly Christian one.

It reminds us that without a Saviour, we remain trapped in sin and death’s shadow.

Each step toward the manger is also a step toward surrender.

To reach out to the Baby-King, we must be willing to die a little more each day: to ego, to comfort, to control, to our relentless attachment to worldly things.

Jesus Himself tells us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Daily. Not only at the end.

Our lives, whether we realise it or not, are a long preparation for death. And we die how we live.

Priests have sometimes shared with me how rare deathbed conversions are—not because God is not merciful, but because life is a rehearsal.

When the final moment arrives, many people remain locked into the patterns they have practised for years.

Gebirah's Missioners bringing assistance to Vi Hoang Hospice in Vietnam where the dying who are abandoned are cared for until the end.

I have seen this truth echoed through hospice visits, funerals, and humanitarian encounters.

It is not that God refuses us. It is that we struggle to surrender when we have not practised letting go.

Lessons From The Margins

My humanitarian work under Gebirah has reinforced this lesson in ways I never expected.

I remember sitting with refugees who had lost everything—home, status, identity, security.

With almost nothing left to cling to, many displayed a depth of faith that humbled me. Their prayers were simple, honest, and stripped of pretence.

In coastal communities devastated by typhoons, floods and forced relocation, families spoke quietly about loss and uncertainty. What struck me was not despair, but solidarity. Their concern was not accumulation, but care for one another.

In those moments, Mary’s Magnificat felt alive: “He has lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52).

Time and again, the poor have taught me what interior poverty looks like.

They have helped me see how attached I am to things that will one day mean nothing—and how little we truly need to live with dignity, faith, and hope.

The Manger Teaches Us How To Die Well

To seek Christ, we must turn away from the glare of lights, the noise, and the false assurances of power and comfort.

Bethlehem—meant to be lowly—missed the Saviour because it was too busy.

We risk doing the same.

The road to the manger is quiet, lonely, and uncomfortable.

It requires us to loosen our grip on possessions, status, and even our plans for ourselves.

Yet it is precisely there, in poverty and vulnerability, that we meet God.

The Son of God was born to die—so that death would no longer have the final word.

His Incarnation points unmistakably toward the Cross. In doing so, He not only redeems us, but teaches us how to die well: with trust, surrender, and love.

Because we know that death has been conquered—“I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25)—we are free to let go of what is merely dust.

Interior poverty makes space for God. Only empty hands can receive eternal life.

This is why Christmas is so powerful.

In the stillness, silence, and even loneliness many experience during this season—especially those grieving or separated from loved ones—we encounter the Baby-King who enters our fragility and transforms it from within.

From Reflection To Mission

Detachment does not mean withdrawing from the world. It means loving rightly.

When we are less attached to comfort and consumption, we become more available—to God, and to one another.

This is where Gebirah offers a concrete path.

Through our missions, volunteer opportunities, and long-term humanitarian programs, we create spaces where faith becomes action.

Whether serving refugees, vulnerable women and children, or communities affected by poverty and climate injustice, these encounters do more than meet needs—they reshape hearts.

They teach us how to let go. They train us to love freely. They prepare us, gently and faithfully, for the day we must surrender everything.

Treating refugee friends from Afghanistan in Bogor to their favourite Afghanistan meal

A Final Invitation

Christmas reminds us that God entered the world through poverty, vulnerability, and the shadow of death—so that death would never have the final say.

If we allow it, this season can reorient our lives away from accumulation and toward love, away from fear and toward trust, away from comfort and toward mission.

Then we will truly have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

If you feel inclined, please like, share or comment, connect and follow me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-tan-c-g/

I love hearing your thoughts.

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