Hatfield Church - Vicar's Notes

‘…he knew how to keep Christmas well…’

Decenmber 2009

My all-time favourite story is Dickens' ‘A Christmas Carol'. I've always loved it and never tire of seeing it reinterpreted for a contemporary audience. I have most of the DVD versions, a copy of the traditional Dickens book, have seen Leonard Rossiter play brilliantly the part of Scrooge at the Leeds Grand Theatre and I'm really looking forward to the new Disney version in 3D, with Jim Carrey playing the part of Scrooge and all of the three spirits.

The thing that I think Dickens really hits home to anyone reading the story and truly understanding it, is how people can be sidetracked by experiences and events throughout their lives and how, sometimes, they can make us ‘not-so-nice' people. The knocks and bumps we receive can often create a hard shell around us and we are then reluctant to trust others or share with others. We keep to ourselves or a small group, and consider this to be healthy. This is what had happened to Ebenezer - he retreated from the real world. His mother had died when he was only very young, sent to a boarding school by a father that couldn't cope and was unable to show love, he began to build a barrier to protect himself. He fell in love with a beautiful girl and also money. But money had the stronger hold on him and began to turn his heart colder. Surviving his equally uncompassionate business partner Jacob Marley, is where Dickens' story begins and where we are invited to journey back through Ebenezer's life - and ultimately consider our own, too.

I'm sure that many people can identify something of themselves with Scrooge; particularly the ‘humbug' of all of the hype as the consumerism of Christmas builds ever higher. But many people also identify something of that hidden, buried nature of their distant past, when times seemed warmer, friendlier, happier. Like Ebenezer, we ask ourselves where all of those times went? How could we forget them? How did we end up where we are now?

Dickens reminds us of a wonderful Christian truth, that all is not lost, that we are not stuck where we are now if we choose not to be. Scrooge was visited by three spirits, of past, present and future and also by his business partner, Jacob. They succeeded in the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge and the story has a happier ending because he chose to accept his shortcomings and made a determined effort to change and share himself, his love and his wealth with others. We are told in the story that this dramatic transformation made him laugh and sing and dance until he was breathless. Ebenezer had discovered something that had remained dormant for too many years - a love for life itself and the intoxicating joy of giving to others without expecting anything in return.

We are reminded each Christmas as God steps down from heaven and is born as a helpless baby to a carpenter's wife in a stable in Bethlehem, of the reason for our existence, our purpose here on earth; to love God and to make humankind our business. We are reminded about how the pain of our hidden and buried past can be exorcised and our own transformation can bring us out into the light and the love of God, where it can receive the healing it needs. We are reminded of how our own actions and decisions have consequences. Scrooge decided to help Bob Cratchet's family and Tiny Tim survives. Dickens was addressing a Victorian audience that had chosen to forget the poor and desperate. We too have choices, and they all have consequences.

Ebenezer Scrooge was in danger of being remembered only briefly and then forgotten as a miser who didn't care. Dickens' story ends with him being loved and respected as a man who was transformed and released from the past that bound him.

As we celebrate the coming of God to earth in Jesus this Christmas, consider what needs to be transformed in our own lives and whose lives we can help to change by our love and our generosity.

Dickens ends his classic tale with ‘'...and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well...May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!'

With every blessing this Christmastide . Paul