Scott Kamps
What’s so magical about Christmas?
Why do we resonate with Ebenezer Scrooge’s nephew that Christmas is “a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time…in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem… to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
The above quotation is from Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. The “ghostly little book” – released in 1843 – was an instant hit. It sustained great success, even introducing a new word into the English language: “scrooge!”
The allusions in A Christmas Carol to other great works like Dante’s Divine Comedy and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are plentiful.
But the Bible is central to A Christmas Carol.
While biblical allusions pervade the novella, the whole book is a story of redemption. Four ghosts visit Scrooge, leading him on a journey to self-revelation to shame/regret to repentance/transformation.
With the memorable beginning, “Marley was dead: to begin with,” we are immediately made aware that Scrooge’s redemption begins with another man’s death; possibly pointing us to someone’s death besides Marley!
Described as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner,” Scrooge becomes a new man, seeking to honor Christmas in his heart, striving to keep it all year.
What changes Scrooge?
Dr. Dwight Lindley explains “the linchpin of the whole book” appears when the Ghost of Christmas Future and Scrooge visit the house of the Cratchit’s while they mourn Tiny Tim’s death.
The oldest Crachit boy reads, “And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.”
Hearing those words, Scrooge wonders why the boy doesn’t go on.
Those words from Mark 9:36 are followed with: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
A child was used as a prop for this lesson – not because children are innocent and easy to serve, but because they are powerless and dependent on others; having no status in the first century. In serving the lowliest of society, Jesus explains we serve God. Scrooge needed to open his heart to become a man who’d receive a child – receive Christ. This leads us to the deeper and beautiful truth of A Christmas Carol: that God enters this world as a child.
This delightful story points to the Son of God becoming man and living among us, and the need for us to treasure earthly life and the people we meet on our journey.
Merry Christmas to us all!
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.