Sunday, I began leading a sermon series using Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and especially the character of Ebenezer Scrooge, as the illustrative backdrop to our consideration of the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“A Christmas Carol” is a classic that many, like me, enjoy reading, watching or listening to during the Christmas season. Dickens artfully creates a most miserable character in Scrooge, who goes through a marvelous transformation. The following is only part of his initial description of Scrooge:
“Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster … He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.”
Through the visits of the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, Scrooge realizes the errors of his ways and is transformed into a generous and lovable soul whom Dickens ends with this description of him:
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”
And then, Dickens concluded his story with these words: “May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
Although “A Christmas Carol” is a classic that edifies and perhaps has encouraged some change and benevolence among the human race, it, like Dickens’s theology (The Life of Our Lord, 1849), is missing the source of the true transformational power — namely, the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, to truly understand and appreciate the meaning of Christmas, we should consider the prophecies of the past, the present impact of Christ’s first coming, and the future implications of it.
In other words, humans need more than sentimentality and heart-warming stories this season, no matter how creative and well written. What every human being needs is to have their sins forgiven and to receive new life, a new birth, through faith in the person and work of Jesus the Christ. He is the eternal Son of God who also became a man, born of the virgin, come to set human beings free from the curse and consequences of sin.
He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the one who not only provides the means of forgiveness and reconciliation with God, but He also transforms us to be more like Him in our character “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
So, let us keep Christmas well, and may God bless us, every one!
(Join us Dec. 17 and 24, at either 9:15 or 11 a.m., for the “A Christmas Carol” series, or via our livestream at newpalestinebiblechurch.org.)
Brett Crump is senior pastor of New Palestine Bible Church. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
