MEN OF GOODWILL — AND THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHRISTMAS
In A Christmas Carol, Fred—the nephew—speaks one of the most quietly devastating lines in all of Dickens. He is cheerful, warm, reasonable; Scrooge is cold, sharp, transactional. And when Scrooge snarls at Christmas as a “humbug,” Fred replies—almost gently—that Christmas has always been a time when people “open their shut-up hearts freely, and think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
Then comes the phrase that matters here. Christmas, Fred says, belongs to “men and women of good will.” And Scrooge hears it as an insult.
Why?
Because “men of goodwill” is not a compliment to the self-satisfied. It is a quiet rebuke to the self-enclosed.
The language comes straight out of Luke’s Nativity account:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14).
Older English ears heard this not as God approving everyone, but as God announcing peace to those whose hearts are bent toward peace—those receptive to grace, not those proud of their balance sheets or moral ledgers.
Dickens knew this. Fred is not saying, “I am good; therefore I deserve Christmas.”
He is saying, “Christmas makes goodwill possible—if you will receive it.”
Scrooge bristles because goodwill costs him something. It threatens his solitude. It asks him to loosen his grip.
Scrooge believes himself upright, disciplined, efficient. He pays his bills. He owes no one mercy. So when Fred speaks of men of goodwill, Scrooge hears: You are not one of them.
And he’s right—though not for the reason he thinks.
Goodwill is not niceness. It is not temperament. It is not optimism.
Goodwill is a posture of the heart—a willingness to be interrupted by grace.
Scrooge’s problem is not that he lacks feelings; it is that he refuses fellowship. He does not wish peace with others if peace requires vulnerability. And so the angelic song excludes him—not by cruelty, but by truth.
The Gospel never says Christ came for the deserving. It says He came for the receptive.
“He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53).
That verse is not about money. It is about fullness that cannot receive. Hands clenched around coins cannot open for bread.
“Men of goodwill” are not morally superior people. They are people who do not barricade themselves against love. They are the shepherds who go. The Magi who kneel. The tax collector who beats his chest. The thief who asks to be remembered.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
Poor in spirit—empty enough to receive.
Christmas is gentle, but it is not neutral. The manger judges pride even as it saves sinners. God does not enter the world with force, but with an invitation—and invitations can be refused.
That is why Fred’s joy irritates Scrooge. Joy exposes what has been avoided. Light reveals what has been locked away.
And that is why Christianity still unsettles polite society. The Gospel insists that peace comes not through control, but surrender; not through insulation, but incarnation.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
That kind of grace dismantles self-made men.
Not: Are you successful?
Not: Are you respectable?
But: Are you willing?
Willing to forgive.
Willing to kneel.
Willing to be changed.
That is what Fred means. That is why Scrooge flinches. And that is why the angels still sing—not to flatter humanity, but to invite it.
Peace on earth—to men of goodwill.
To those who will lay down their defenses long enough to receive a Child.
____________
Lord Jesus, make my heart soft enough for Your peace, open enough for Your grace, and willing enough to be changed. Let me be counted among those who receive Christmas—not merely admire it. Amen.
BDD
