I reread this little classic every a year. There are shelves and shelves worth of Christmas-themed books out there, but only one that can really claim not to have just impacted a few people, but the entirety of history. Before The Christmas Carol was published in 1843, Christmas was a minor holiday mostly known for drunkenness. While the church emphasized it as Christ's birth, the general population didn't have the means or the framework to celebrate with the same vigor we do today. Most importantly, the modern idea that Christmas is largely a holiday centered around generosity was absolutely foreign.
Most people will recognize the story of The Christmas Carol. It is considered to be the most adapted story ever published. But many people will not think to look for what this story has to say about God. I would like to look further into that aspect in today's post.
The Christmas Carol centers around the miserly "old sinner", Ebenezer Scrooge. The greedy man has amassed a large amount of wealth for himself, but lives a life of physical, relational, and spiritual poverty, treating every penny as precious. We see, in the introduction of the book, how Scrooge not only denies other human beings comfort but also denies it to himself in the effort to save as much money as possible.
On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner. A man who was as money-focused as him. This ghost offers him one chance of hope to escape a miserable life as a ghost. He will be visited by three Christmas ghosts who will teach him the meaning of the holiday.
Over the course of the night, Scrooge meets the ghost of Christmas past, who shows him his own history, the ghost of Christmas present, who introduces him to the various ways Christmas is celebrated around him, and the ghost of Christmas future, who threatens death, loss, and shows what a life lived without kindness looks like.
This final shock of fear is what Scrooge needs. He repents, and spends the rest of his life blessing not only his employee and family, but the poor of London all around him.
A biography of Dickens, the author of The Christmas Carol, was turned into a movie. "The Man Who Invented Christmas." I found a signed copy of the same book at a thrift store, and read it several years back.
It was very interesting to see the way Dicken's life informed his writing. Particularly in relation to The Christmas Carol. Dicken's father was incredibly irresponsible with their finances. His lack of ability to provide for his family ended with him and his wife in debtor's prison while Dickens was essentially enslaved in a factory.
Dickens inherited some of his father's irresponsibility, though he made considerably more than his father did as a best-selling author. His large family and lavish lifestyle had led him to bankruptcy at the time he wrote The Christmas Carol. This book was self-published with the last of the money Dickens had.
In Dicken's depiction of Scrooge, we can see his self-defense, as he condemns Scrooge for not only his lack of generosity but also his choice to not spend his money on himself either. Far stronger than that, however, we can Scrooge's compassion for the poor. He cares for those forced to depend on government options such as workhouses and debtor's prisons. And he insists that poverty was the root cause of such evils (as it genuinely was in those days) as childhood disease and death, crime, and lack of societal advancement.
The success of The Christmas Carol paid for Dicken's bills and more, becoming such a success that it has never gone out of print. More than that, it has formed so much of our modern understanding of Christmas.
While it's clear that Dicken's intended for the main message in The Christmas Carol to be about how we treat our fellow man, he couldn't help but use the example set by God himself. I think, however, Dickens misidentifies the answer to the problem he is wrestling with. Human compassion is what Dickens most desires to see in this world to resolve the hurt he sees, and the hurt he has experienced. He even goes as far as to condemn the church (probably rightly) for closing some of their ministries on Sundays.
However, years of history have shown us that even people's best intentions and most genuine efforts to care for others often results in more pain. You don't have to look much further than communism, most cults, or our own government aid programs.
The meaning of Christmas was staring Dickens in the face the entire time. Not just as an example to be followed, but as the answer itself.
Dicken's use of the ghosts of past, present, and future is a powerful choice because, you cannot understand the gift of Christmas without understanding the history behind it, our current standing, and our future.
If the Holy Spirit were to fill the role of these Christmas ghosts, what do you think he would show us? Scripture very much follows this pattern. Our history is laid out in the fall, laws, and sacrifices, and the culmination of history in the perfect gift, Jesus.
The fall shows us what we once were. It serves much the same purpose as in Scrooge's story, where see him as a hopeful young man. The laws and sacrifices show us how we fail, again and again. How we are unable to meet the standard given to us. Much as we are exposed to Scrooge's failings throughout the first stave of The Christmas Carol. While Scrooge is left with only his failings, however, our history ends with the overwhelming grace of Christ entering history and paying our debt for us. In The Christmas Carol, redemption was a role for Scrooge to fill. In scripture, it is clear that only Christ can accomplish this redemption.
The majority of the New Testament shows us the grace of God imparted to us through the church age. Just as the ghost of Christmas present showed the wonders of Christmas in the present day, filling Scrooge with joy and hope, the New Testament is God showing us how His grace functions in the modern age. How we are freed from the tyranny of law and punishment, how guilt has no hold on us, how we are all equal in God's sight. While scripture warns us of hard times and brokenness, we are also imparted with a sense of hope and overall, awe in God and his church.
Finally, we are shown the future in scriptures like Revelation. While for some scriptures about our future are threatening, the promise of God's grace holds true for the believer. We have escaped the wrath of a just God and entered into his love. We have a future of hope in His presence. While, like Scrooge, we do have the threat of what happens if we refuse to change our ways, as Christians we also have much more promise for the world that lies ahead. Unlike Scrooge, we are not held over our grave and told lest we change, we will die. No. Instead we stand on the edge of salvation and are told "you have already been saved from this future. You are already saved unto this future. By grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Now go and live in light of it."
In C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves he describes "Gift Love" or agape. This is unearned, unrelenting love. A love that not only can you not do anything to merit, but one you cannot do anything to lose. There is, Lewis says, only one person who can truly practice gift love.
When I first read The Four Loves, I struggled to agree with his sentiment. I could think of several instances when I had been loved despite myself. Or where I had been utterly self-sacrificing in my love. The issue is that no matter how self-sacrificing I believe I am, I still am getting something out of it. Even if it's only sense of peace or an illusion of control. My failed marriage has shown me that I am capable of giving up loving someone when it gets too hard. Even if I do not do it willingly, my body will do it for me without my permission.
Only God is capable of perfect gift love. It is His perfect gift love, his unmerited grace, that we celebrate at Christmas.
Scrooge had to learn the grace of giving financially to those around him who had not, perhaps, done anything to earn it. This is a type of grace, but only a distant shadow of the true grace we focus on at Christmas. So when you celebrate this year, amid all the stress and fear in this world, do not hesitate to give financially where you can. But more importantly, do not hesitate to stop and remember the grace that we are mimicking when we do. And do not hesitate to show others where to find it. Salvation is the only true gift. It is not wrapped, set under a tree, or reveled in by friends and family. It is a gift quietly given, unlooked for, on the darkest of nights. Grace, given to those lease deserving in the form of God Himself, incarnate in a tiny, helpless baby. God Himself, hung on a tree for us.
Merry Christmas. Delight in the gift of Grace, of His son.
Join me after Christmas to look into The Midnight Library, and where we find hope.
For those interested in my fiction writing, my short story anthology, Under Ancient and Ageless Skies is out today. If you enjoy how I pulled out messages of God in Science Fiction and Fantasy, you might enjoy seeing how I inject those messages into my own stories.