Lessons from A Christmas Carol
-Introduction
-Merry Christmas! I hope you’ve had a good holiday so far with perhaps some more festivities
awaiting for some.
-I truly do enjoy the holiday—this time of year—the festivities, the activities, the “spirit” of the
holidays, the family aspect, etc., etc.
-It can get a bit crazy, of course—busy, hectic, expensive.
-Amongst the things I enjoy are Christmas movies.
-It’s nice to find those moments amidst the craziness to sit down and enjoy a movie—cup of
coffee/hot chocolate, Christmas-type snacks & a movie.
-Now, there are a number of Christmas movies I like—some new, some classics, some
animated. My favorite: It’s a Wonderful Life.
-Another favorite is A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens).
-I don’t know if there has ever been a movie done in so many different formats – from
George C. Scott to Mickey Mouse, the Muppets, to animation.
-You Know the Story
-Ebenezer Scrooge is a hard and bitter old man. He does not enjoy Christmas or those things we
just mentioned which accompany it—festivities, generosity, family. He has made money his
primary goal and has been very successful in those regards. Yet, along the way he has lost sight
of concepts like love, joy and peace.
-Then he is warned by his former, deceased partner and visited by three additional ghosts (and no
I’m not saying in any way that ghosts exist).
-He is allowed to see his past, the present and the future.
-Through this experience, Scrooge undergoes a significant change.
-The Past
-The past—our past—is a collection of good and bad.
-There are good things that happened—good circumstance—things we enjoyed & appreciated.
-There are bad things—circumstances outside our control—things we dealt with and endured.
-These things helped mold us and shape us into who we are—for better or for worse.
-Yet, the past also contains good and bad in regards to the things in our control—our own words,
actions and decisions.
-We look back at our pasts and we see good decisions that we’ve made—helpful words that
we offered to others—good things that we’ve done. There are those things that—if given
the opportunity to do them again—we probably wouldn’t change.
-But, we do have those things that we would like to have a second chance at—mistakes that
we made—things that wewould do differently.
-The fact is…the past remains the past. It does not change.
-For Scrooge, he didn’t have the best family environment. Yet, he was close to his sister and
developed friends and found opportunity in an apprenticeship. And, he had fallen in love.
-Yet, we find a significant time in Scrooge’s past when he allowed his love of money to
push everything and everybody else away. Such was the path Scrooge chose and traveled
upon.
-Ultimately, we choose our own path and we must travel that path. We need to be careful that
we don’t allow the material things of this world to distract us from those things most important.
-Example of Jesus: born in a manger (Luke 2:7); raised in Nazareth (John 1:45-46); a
carpenter (Mark 6:3). When doing his public work, he had no place to call home (Matt
8:20). Jesus, the Son of God, served from birth to death as an example of humility.
-We don’t have to be destitute of worldly things. We just need to be careful not to allow the
pursuit of worldly things to cause us to be destitute of spiritual life.
-Mark 8:36
-One of my favorite lines from A Christmas Carol: “Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of
water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
-In one of the movies, Marley says, “People were my business.”
-I wonder, how well have we’ve done in the people business?
-Present
-When considering the present, Scrooge is given a perspective more broad than his own.
-He is given the opportunity to expand his perspective from being centered only upon self to
taking greater consideration of others.
-In so doing: he is able to better recognize the kindness of others (his nephew Fred).
He is able to better recognize the hard work and dedication of others (his employee, Bob).
He is able to better recognize the needs of those around him (Tiny Tim).
-Sometimes we would all do well to take a moment and do our best to view things from outside
our own, daily perspective—our rut in which we often times travel—our narrow focus on the
schedule we try to keep.
-How well do we do to look for and recognize the kindness of others? Their hard work?
The needs of others?
-How well are we doing in the people business?
-For Jesus, it was always about people.
-Now there are many things Jesus did for which we have no record (John 20:30–31). But it
is interesting to see the encounters which are recorded—to learn of the miracles which he
performed. Often times, those involved in the miracles and the encounters were those who
had been marginalized by society—outcasts, the downtrodden, the neglected, the scorned.
-Ultimately, Jesus was about every single individual because he died for the sins of all.
-John 3:16; Titus 2:11
-Future
-Another of my favorite lines of the story is found in the “future” portion. Scrooge asks, “Are
these the things that will be or are these the things that might be?”
-While the past is set and the present unfolds, the future has yet to be determined. So, not only
do we make present decisions with the help of past lessons. We need to be making present
decisions in preparation for the future.
-Ultimately, we need to be making decisions and taking actions in a spiritual context.
-Matt 24:44
-Closing
“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life,"
replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
-That’s what we do in regards to sin. We connect ourselves to it link by link. We chain
ourselves in its bondage yard by yard. We do so by our own free will.
-Yet, we can have the burden of that weight removed. We can be freed from that chain
through the Gospel of Christ.
-We can have the comfort of forgiveness for those past mistakes. We can live in the present as a
child of God. We can approach the future with hope and assurance thanks to Jesus.
-So, on this journey of life, where are you? On your spiritual journey, where are you at and
where do you need to be?