During Advent, a little group of us have been studying “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens as part of a bible study. Things got busy this week and we didn’t have time for our final session, but those of us who had a chance to talk about it compared some thoughts about how the story ends. Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed by the visit of three spirits and he is a new man. In our memories of the story, there was much dancing and celebration about his conversion. The original story is brief. Scrooge buys a goose for the Cratchit family and has dinner with his nephew. That’s about it. In our memories we remember him dancing around and buying presents and hanging around the Cratchit household.
Perhaps our memories of Ebenezer Scrooge are embellished by numerous movie and television adaptations. For Dickens, a transformed life was enough to write about. We seem to need song and dance and the giving of piles of presents. The celebration of Christmas on only one day and mostly consisting of one meal seems to us a little sparse.
It was not always been so even for us. The grand season we know today has only been true for us after World War II. Only a few generations ago, Christmas was mostly a single day affair. Going back a few more generations, Christmas was subdued and further back to colonial days – Christmas was outlawed as a bunch of catholic nonsense. (You could be fined five shillings for making merry!)
Tales of Santa Claus, and Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer enlarge our Christmas. We have the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge and also the Grinch. We remember Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman. We have a rich repertoire of tales about giving and about sacrifice. We hear morals about the true meaning of Christmas and think we are preserving something valuable and ancient. They are like the well-preserved ornaments we take down from our attic. In our minds they are old and traditional, handed down from our parents. In reality, they were bought at some five and dime and hung on a tree a generation or two ago and we are only preserving what we’ve been given.
I enjoy all the trappings of the Christmas we celebrate today. I love the carols and the decorations. I like buying presents for those I love and I love gathering as a family and taking stock of all our blessings. I also know that as good as all of this is, in our rush and hurry to celebrate, not much of what we do intentionally points to God.
There was a time before Charlie Brown and the Grinch who could steal Christmas. There was a time before Christmas trees and Christmas lights. There was a time before our winter celebration of gift giving and feasting. There was a time before this winter gathering of family around the hearth in the darkest days of the year. There was a time when the only gift that mattered was the one that God would give us.
The deep truth of this day is that God has come to help us when we most need help. We’d like to think our present difficulties are an aberration. We want to get back to days of prosperity and plenty and we assume those days are normal. God knows that we are always hurting and always suffering. We are always in some sort of want. In truth we need God. We will find no peace or contentment without God. As hard as we try, we keep drifting from the right path and we become prisoners to our own selfishness and fear. The good news is that God comes to us when we deserve it least.
Two thousand years ago, God entered human existence in a poor village in the middle of nowhere. In doing so, God proclaims that no poor village is ever unimportant ever again. The birth of Jesus proclaims that God is everywhere we find ourselves. God is now with us. God is in every human struggle and in every human want. The baby Jesus feels what we feel and needs what we need and depends upon the love and care of other human hands.
The Christmas story is a human story. We can’t tell it without remembering what God has done for us. We can’t tell it unless we fit it into the lives we live right now. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but we have heard the good news wherever we have heard it – in our homes, on television, or through Ebenezer Scrooge.
I don’t believe we need to rescue Christmas from commercialization. I say we should sing every song and tell every story. Every blinking light and every wrapped present tells a facet of the story of God’s love for us and God’s generosity to us. If we must be careful about anything, it would be to remember why God has been so generous. God wants to change us. God wants us to be transformed people, singing and dancing like a transformed Scrooge because we have heard good news.
Christmas isn’t about the size or beauty of our tree, or the abundance of our presents. Christmas is about the gift of Jesus. Jesus is given to make us into new people. So instead of asking one another, “What did you get for Christmas?” Perhaps we should be asking, “How are you different this Christmas?”
Perhaps our memories of Ebenezer Scrooge are embellished by numerous movie and television adaptations. For Dickens, a transformed life was enough to write about. We seem to need song and dance and the giving of piles of presents. The celebration of Christmas on only one day and mostly consisting of one meal seems to us a little sparse.
It was not always been so even for us. The grand season we know today has only been true for us after World War II. Only a few generations ago, Christmas was mostly a single day affair. Going back a few more generations, Christmas was subdued and further back to colonial days – Christmas was outlawed as a bunch of catholic nonsense. (You could be fined five shillings for making merry!)
Tales of Santa Claus, and Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer enlarge our Christmas. We have the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge and also the Grinch. We remember Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman. We have a rich repertoire of tales about giving and about sacrifice. We hear morals about the true meaning of Christmas and think we are preserving something valuable and ancient. They are like the well-preserved ornaments we take down from our attic. In our minds they are old and traditional, handed down from our parents. In reality, they were bought at some five and dime and hung on a tree a generation or two ago and we are only preserving what we’ve been given.
I enjoy all the trappings of the Christmas we celebrate today. I love the carols and the decorations. I like buying presents for those I love and I love gathering as a family and taking stock of all our blessings. I also know that as good as all of this is, in our rush and hurry to celebrate, not much of what we do intentionally points to God.
There was a time before Charlie Brown and the Grinch who could steal Christmas. There was a time before Christmas trees and Christmas lights. There was a time before our winter celebration of gift giving and feasting. There was a time before this winter gathering of family around the hearth in the darkest days of the year. There was a time when the only gift that mattered was the one that God would give us.
The deep truth of this day is that God has come to help us when we most need help. We’d like to think our present difficulties are an aberration. We want to get back to days of prosperity and plenty and we assume those days are normal. God knows that we are always hurting and always suffering. We are always in some sort of want. In truth we need God. We will find no peace or contentment without God. As hard as we try, we keep drifting from the right path and we become prisoners to our own selfishness and fear. The good news is that God comes to us when we deserve it least.
Two thousand years ago, God entered human existence in a poor village in the middle of nowhere. In doing so, God proclaims that no poor village is ever unimportant ever again. The birth of Jesus proclaims that God is everywhere we find ourselves. God is now with us. God is in every human struggle and in every human want. The baby Jesus feels what we feel and needs what we need and depends upon the love and care of other human hands.
The Christmas story is a human story. We can’t tell it without remembering what God has done for us. We can’t tell it unless we fit it into the lives we live right now. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but we have heard the good news wherever we have heard it – in our homes, on television, or through Ebenezer Scrooge.
I don’t believe we need to rescue Christmas from commercialization. I say we should sing every song and tell every story. Every blinking light and every wrapped present tells a facet of the story of God’s love for us and God’s generosity to us. If we must be careful about anything, it would be to remember why God has been so generous. God wants to change us. God wants us to be transformed people, singing and dancing like a transformed Scrooge because we have heard good news.
Christmas isn’t about the size or beauty of our tree, or the abundance of our presents. Christmas is about the gift of Jesus. Jesus is given to make us into new people. So instead of asking one another, “What did you get for Christmas?” Perhaps we should be asking, “How are you different this Christmas?”
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