Scrooge

Seventh Day of Advent

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, chapter one, paragraph one, sentence one – Marley was dead, to begin with.

Charles Dickens was a master of the opening line, and this is one of my favourites. You see, it’s not just that Marley is already dead when we come upon the first scene in the story; Marley was dead, to begin with. And it seems a fair assessment. His heart had beaten, to be sure, but that’s all that it had ever done. And the flame, if any, that had burned within him had never given any warmth. He’d made a handsome living, but no life. Yes, I fear that Mr. Dickens had it right. Marley was dead, to begin with. And what was true of Jacob Marley was true also of his business partner, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Was there ever, in all of literature, a character more hopeless, more beyond redemption, than Scrooge, that – to use Mr. Dickens’ own words – squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner? Yet this is why we love the story so. If such a dead, cold, heartless man as he can find life, or better said, be found by life, then there is hope for everyone.

The tale unfolds with visitations of the Christmas Spirit, all of it: past, present and to come. And Scrooge is touched and, being touched, is changed. Not just his thinking, attitude, or sentiment, but Scrooge himself, in every way. He’s born again, as we might say. But a tree is judged by fruit, not leaves or blossoms, and so he makes a pledge to do, not just to be; specifically to serve his clerk, Bob Cratchit, and to help him raise his family. And so the story ends:

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. … and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

This is the hope of Christmas: that the life we seek and cannot find might actually be seeking us, that it will find us, touch us, set its fire within us, and change us; not just our thinking, attitude, or sentiment, but US ourselves, in every way. And so we pray, “God bless us, Every One!”