Paul David Tripp, a pastor and best-selling author, is calling the birth of Jesus Christ bad news.
“It wasn’t just your typical piece of bad news; it was the worst news ever. Maybe you’re thinking right now, ‘Paul, what in the world are you talking about,’” Tripp wrote in a recent Crossway article adapted by his Come, Let Us Adore Him: An Advent Devotional. “‘How could there be any better news than the coming of the Messiah to earth?’ Well, you need to understand that there are two parts of the Christmas story, and you need both parts to make proper sense out of the whole story.”
Sin is the bad news included in the Christmas story about Jesus Christ coming to save the world, Tripp says.
“Romans 3:23 exposes this danger with a few simple words: ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ Sin is the bad news of the Christmas story,” he wrote. “Jesus didn’t come to earth to do a preaching tour or to hang out with us for a while; he came on a radical mission of moral rescue.”
Once people can accept the bad news of their sin, the pastor says they can fully accept the good news of Jesus.
“The Christmas story tells you that you have been freed forever from denying or minimizing the danger that lives inside you because Jesus came to rescue you, forgive you, transform you, and ultimately to deliver you. That baby in the manger carried with him to earth everything that sinners need,” he wrote. “It’s only when you admit the need that you will be able to fully celebrate the solution that is Jesus.”