When a Single Smile Lights the World: A Christmas Reflection

🎄 A Flame of Joy, Hope, and Peace for Christmas 2025

Every Christmas, we hear the familiar wishes of Joy, Hope, and Peace. They appear on cards, in songs, in greetings exchanged across the world. Yet, in a time marked by global upheavals, uncertainty, and challenges that test our resilience, these words can sometimes feel distant — almost fragile.

A few days ago, by pure accident, I stumbled upon an old video from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay in Kiryu — an event that, as we all remember, was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID‑19 pandemic. At first, the video seemed like any other torch‑relay footage: official vehicles, music, and the slow build‑up of anticipation. For nearly two minutes, nothing unusual happened.

And then, something extraordinary appeared.

As the crowd began to applaud, a torchbearer emerged from behind a van — a young woman in a wheelchair, accompanied by another athlete who gently pushed her forward. She was not a champion, nor a professional athlete. She was simply a young woman living with a disability, chosen to carry the Olympic flame.

Another athlete approached her with solemn respect and lit her torch. Because she could not hold it herself, the flame was carefully secured to her wheelchair. What followed was one of the most heart‑warming minutes I have ever witnessed.

As she moved forward, her smile radiated a pure, unfiltered happiness — the kind that needs no translation. The spectators responded instantly. Their applause grew louder, their faces lit up, and for a brief moment, the weight of the pandemic, the fear, the isolation, and the uncertainty seemed to dissolve. In that single minute, she embodied the deepest meaning of the Olympic spirit: courage, resilience, and hope against all odds.

It was also a reminder of the courage behind the Tokyo Games themselves — held without spectators, with enormous financial sacrifice, and under the shadow of a global crisis. Yet the flame still burned. The athletes still competed. Humanity still showed up.

Five years later, that one minute of video still speaks louder than a thousand words.

The young woman’s smile — despite her limitations, despite the world’s turmoil — captured the essence of what we long for at Christmas. Not as a religious ritual, but as a universal expression of humanity at its best.

Joy that shines even in hardship. Hope that refuses to be extinguished. Peace that begins in the courage of a single heart.

As we celebrate Christmas 2025, may the image of that young torchbearer remind us that Joy, Hope, and Peace are not abstract wishes. They are lived realities, often carried by those who face the greatest challenges. They are choices we make, lights we pass on, flames we protect — just like the Olympic torch.

May her smile continue to inspire us to rise above despair, to believe in resilience, and to carry our own flame forward into the new year.

Wishing you a Christmas filled with true Joy, enduring Hope, and lasting Peace.