2 Sermon Illustrations on Sacrifice of Christ

It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little Babe. It cost mothers in and around Bethlehem the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod. It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherds' life, with the call to the manger and to tell the good news. It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives. It cost the early apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death. It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the good news. It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ's sake. More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son-He sent Him to the earth to save men. It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, a death cruel and unmatched in history. The Shoemaker's Dream One of the most beautiful of all Christmas stories was told by the American poet, Edwin Markham, about a cobbler, a godly man who made shoes in the old days. One night the cobbler dreamed that the next day Jesus was coming to visit him. The dream seemed so real that he got up very early the next morning and hurried to the woods, where he gathered green boughs to decorate his shop for the arrival of so great a Guest. He waited all morning, but to his disappointment, his shop remained quiet, except for an old man who limped up to the door asking to come in for a few minutes of warmth. While the man was resting, the cobbler noticed that the old fellow's shoes were worn through. Touched, the cobbler took a new pair from his shelves and saw to it that the stranger was wearing them as he went on his way. Throughout the afternoon the cobbler waited, but his only visitor was an elderly woman. He had seen her struggling under a heavy load of firewood, and he invited her, too, into his shop to rest. Then he discovered that for two days she had had nothing to eat; he saw to it that she had a nourishing meal before she went on her way. As night began to fall, the cobbler heard a child crying outside his door. The child was lost and afraid. The cobbler went out, soothed the youngster's tears and, with the little hand in his, took the child home. When he returned, the cobbler was sad. He was convinced that while he had been away he had missed the visit of his Lord. Now he lived through the moments as he had imagined them: the knock, the latch lifted, the radiant face, the offered cup. He would have kissed the hands where the nails had been, washed the feet where the spikes had entered. Then the Lord would have sat and talked to him. In his anguish, the cobbler cried out, "Why is it, Lord, that Your feet delay. Have you forgotten that this was the day?" Then, soft in the silence a voice he heard: "Lift up your heart for I kept My word. Three times I came to your friendly door; Three times My shadow was on your floor. I was the man with the bruised feet. I was the woman you gave food to eat, I was the child on the homeless street."