Empty Graves And Second Chances Series

When we think of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” we automatically think of the three ghosts. What were their names, again? [Pause.] Actually, there were four ghosts, not three. The first ghost to appear was the ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner, Jacob Marley. Weighed down by the heavy burden of his own sin and regrets, he comes like some ethereal John the Baptist to announce the coming trinity of ghosts who will bring about Scrooge’s redemption. “I am here tonight to warn you,” he tells Scrooge, “that you have yet a chance and a hope of escaping my fate” (Dickens, p. 15).

The first ghost … excuse me … the “second” ghost to appear is the “Ghost of Christmas Past.” This ghost was strange and ethereal … intimate … yet distant. After being shown visions of past Christmases, Scrooge realizes that the person he was doesn’t look anything like the person that he’s become. His bitterness and hurt have consumed any hint of love or joy that he once knew. His redemption begins with the realization that the path that he is on is not the path that he was meant to tread … that this was not the life that God had planned for him.

The next ghost is the “Ghost of Christmas Present.” Unlike the Ghost of Christmas Past, this ghost is very real and very present … just as this moment … right here and right now … is very real and very present. Scrooge can feel the warmth of the fire in the fireplace … he can smell the turkey on the table. The Ghost of Christmas Past showed Scrooge who he had become by showing him who he used to be. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge who he is by showing him what other people think of him.

These two ghosts show Scrooge exactly what he has become … the hardness and callousness of his heart … his dismissal of poverty and the needs of those around him … his total disregard and distain for humanity itself … making him realize that for all his money, what he has accumulated amounts to nothing. Jesus said: “Do no store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19) … or, in Scrooge’s case, where the cleaning woman, the laundress, and the undertaker can steal it after he dies and try to sell it at a pawn shop, amen?

At the stroke of one, Scrooge is greeted by the specter of the Ghost of Christmas Future … a “solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached … the very air through which this Spirit moved it seem to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

“Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?” said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand” (Dickens, pp. 47-48).

You know, we often speak of being haunted by the past but it is also true that we can be haunted by the future. When Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, he cries out: “Ghost of the future! I fear you more than any other spectre” (Dickens, p. 48). And so do we. Yesterday is but a memory. It’s problems, it’s monsters cannot touch us today … they can only haunt us. The present is here, now but it is always moving towards the future where anything can happen. What horrors, what monsters lurk in the shadows … just around the corner?

Look at Dickens’ description of the “Future” – dark, draped and hooded, moving forward like a mist … you can’t see its face, its shape, its form … just like you can’t see tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Our future has no shape, no features. It is always draped or shrouded in darkness and uncertainty. We don’t know what our future looks like because it hasn’t happened yet. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come doesn’t speak … it has no voice … just like our future has no voice. We can go to fortune tellers and soothsayers and they can pretend that they can “see” the future but they can’t speak to the future and the future can’t speak to the present. Go ahead … ask Tomorrow what will happen. See if the Future will speak and reveal its secrets. Like Scrooge, all we can do is follow the bony finger of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and walk blindly into the future and whatever fate it holds for us, amen?