The Offensive but Good News of Christmas (Sermon Illustration)

The good news of Christmas is that Jesus came to save all people.

He did not just come to save the worthy people. He came to rescue sinners, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.

But some people have a hard time accepting that anyone could be so forgiving. It is offensive to think that a bad person could be offered the same gift as a good person.

Doesn’t something just feel right about the Christmas idea that good children get rewarded with presents, but bad children get a lump coal?

But Jesus doesn’t operate this way. He offers forgiveness to all. The bad boys and girls can receive the great gift too if they simply believe in him.

Tim Keller explains it this way:

When I was a new young pastor in a small town in Virginia, there were a number of dilapidated homes and trailers surrounding our church, inhabited by people who were poor and who had many social and personal problems. Occasionally one person would say to me that it was wrong for our more middle-class church to hold its services in the midst of that neighborhood without reaching out to the residents. One day a deacon in our church and I walked across our church’s parking lot to visit a woman who lived in a rented house. She was a single mother whose broken relationships with men had left her impoverished, depressed, living somewhat in disgrace in that conservative, traditional community, and raising her children with almost no help or support. We sat down and had a long talk about the Gospel, the glad tidings, and she responded with joy to the message. She trusted in Christ.

I came back to see her about a week later, but when we sat down she burst into tears. That week she had called up her sister to tell about her conversation with me and about her new faith, but she had been laughed at.

“My sister said, ‘Let me get this straight. This preacher told you that a person like you could do all the foolish, immoral things you have done all your life, and five minutes before you die, you can just repent and trust Jesus and be saved just like that? He told you that you don’t have to live a really good life to go to heaven? That’s offensive. It’s too simple; it’s too easy. I’ll never believe that! And you shouldn’t either.’” Her sister thought that salvation had to be a great feat achieved by noble, moral deeds. It couldn’t be something you just asked for. The ordinariness of the Gospel had offended her pride. I told the weeping woman that her assurance and comfort were not unfounded. We went to the Bible and studied until she saw clearly that Christ came in weakness and smallness to save not the proud but those who admit that they also are weak, small, and need a Savior. Her joy returned. The ancient tidings of Christmas still make people glad.¹

1. Timothy Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ (New York: Viking, 2016), 139-140.

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