Mission Monthly Newsletter February 2001

...Meditate on These Things. Phillipians 4.8

I’d be willing to bet that most of us have watched at least one movie more than ten times.  “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Ben Hur” are a few of my favorites.  My most often watched movie, however, is Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol.”

     This past Nativity fast I was challenged not only to watch my beloved story but also to pick up the book and read it.  Read it?  I had never even seen this book.  Like Dostoyevsky’s, “The Brothers Karamazov” and another Dickens masterpiece, “A Tale of Two Cities,” I had always imagined this classic to be thick, dense and heavy, both in form and content.  To my surprise, however, this “novel” barely seemed to qualify as a short story.  The paperback version I purchased (for all of 50 cents) has only sixty-two pages and fairly large print.

     I have seen maybe six different productions of this compelling story, from my favorite produced in 1951 to a recent 1999 production starring a favorite actor from the popular television series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”  As it turns out all are close but none are nearly as engaging as or completely accurate to the book.  If you are a lover of this story and have never read it I would highly recommend that you make this a personal tradition for the Nativity fast.

     The hopeful themes of repentance and redemption are the most obvious to this tale, as old Ebenezer Scrooge has his cold heart melted by ghostly visits.  Of the many more subtle themes in the story line, here Scrooge’s pride is finally being shattered by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.  The fragile boy, Tiny Tim, had died and Scrooge is allowed to see how the Cratchit family, in their grief, responds to this death with understanding and faithfulness.  Instead of becoming embittered and divisive over the untimely death of their beloved son and brother the entire family assumes angelic qualities of tenderness and harmony, and in memory of Tim’s beautiful soul commit themselves to never fall prey to the temptation of senseless quarreling.

     This theme touches me deeply as I have seen way too often (and for reasons far less painful than death) how quickly selfishness, bitterness, resentment, pride, anger, jealousy, self-justification, revenge, covetousness, isolation, cynicism and the like can drive a stake through the heart of all that is good.  I have seen it in myself, in churches that I have been associated with, in my family and in my work.  I love Bob Cratchit’s challenging words to never let anything come between a man and all that is truly important in this life: the love of God and the love of neighbor, family and friend; and that we must arrest anything, even a simple quarrel, that might lead us to forget the brevity and purpose of life lest we “miss the mark” and appear ungrateful.

     For Scrooge it may have been his last chance.  He said that he was too old to change and that the spirits should spend their time on a younger man.  The spirits, however, like God, would not relent and Scrooge was forced to face the terrible consequences of his foul insensitivity.  He was then shown that the distance from his knees to the floor was not too great; and that if he was indeed willing, this journey was possible and worth any price.  And so too with us, may we always be ready to travel the road of harmony and reconciliation in true thankfulness for God’s bounty which is everywhere present and filling all things.