Ebenezer Scrooge and Christ (Part 7)

I wanted to do try to come up with some sort of “Christmas theme” for my December posts and came up with this idea.  I got an old copy of the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol .  I was amazed at the parallels to the gospel.  So join along with me as we look for Christ in Dickens’ story.  (If say you “hum-bug” to this sort of post, join back up with us in January for more “traditional” postings.)

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath… “I am as light as feather, I am happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy.  I am giddy as a drunken man.  Merry Christmas to everybody!”…He went to church, and walked about the streets and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.  He had never dreamed that any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness.” (Dickens, A Christmas Carol)  ^“Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” (Ps. 51:12) 

^“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17)   

The change in Scrooge is inspirational.  He transforms overnight (literally in his case).  The picture should challenge us Christians to reflect upon our own transformation.  When we were converted, Paul explains that the old has gone the new has come!  In a matter of speaking, we were “Scrooges” transformed by the power of Christ’s blood.  What joy and happiness is found in all the small details of life when the “joy of our salvation” is remembered.  The year’s end always causes one to reflect upon the days past.  Do find yourself saying “I am as light as feather, I am happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy.  I am giddy as a drunken man”?  Surely one set free from sin and death has reason to be?  Or, as with David, does the weight of sin and the worries of life cause you to plead “restore unto me the joy of my salvation”?  Either way, let all of God’s people rejoice in the coming of our Lord and Savior this Christmas.