Bah! Humbug!
These words … and the person who spoke them are so iconoclastic … so famous and well-known … I’ll bet that every one of you can tell me who said them. [Pause.]
That’s right … Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ famous and beloved story “A Christmas Carol.” Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” is the second most popular Christmas story in the English language … second only to the original Christmas story in the Gospels.
Everyone “knows” the story but how many of you have actually read Charles Dickens’ original “A Christmas Carol”? [Pause.] Most people today only know the story from watching movies and plays and there are a lot different versions and poetic variations of the story out there … which is why I would suggest that you actually read the original “A Christmas Carol” this Advent season so that you can form your own opinion about what Dickens’ is describing, It’s not a cute Christmas story like the movie “A Christmas Story” where little Ralphie almost shoots his eye out with his new official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot BB gun with the compass in the stock. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a complex, dense, rich, powerful story about a lost soul … and we are going to follow and observe Scrooge’s salvation and redemption over the next four weeks.
I have always found the title to be interesting … “A Christmas Carol.” To me, a “carol” is a song … a hymn … like “O Little Town of Bethlehem” … “Away in a Manger” … or “Silent Night, Holy Night.” In fact, “carols” are technically “festive songs that may or may not be religious and may or may not be sung during worship … they have a positive, festive, and popular character” (Differencebetween.net). Humm … One doesn’t tend to think of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” as “positive” or “festive” but it certainly is “popular,” amen? Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” may not be a song but it is, in fact, arranged like a “carol” or a hymn. For example, it is divided into five “staves” or “stanzas” like a carol.
Hymns and other religious songs are meant to communicate theology, tradition, and an experience of God … and music is the vehicle through which theology and tradition and story are learned. That’s how we learned our “A, B, C’s,” remember? [Sing the “ABCs.”] Perhaps Dickens called it a “carol” in the hopes that his story would be shared over and over again … year after year …. like a familiar Christmas carol … in order to bring people together in in joy.
Like songs, stories can also help us to remember important information. This is one of the reasons why Jesus spent so much time teaching through stores called “parables.” The parable of “The Prodigal Son” reminds us of God’s grace, for example. The parable of “The Good Samaritan” teaches us about being compassionate. The parables of “The Lost Sheep,” “The Lost Coin,” and “The Pearl of Great Worth” describe the lengths that God will go to find a lost soul … and how Heaven celebrates when they are found. Although Dickens’ “carol” is much longer than a parable and isn’t set to music, he uses the power of story to remind us that there is no soul that is too gruff … too cold … or too cantankerous for God’s redeeming power … not even a gruff, cold, cantankerous soul like Ebenezer Scrooge.
“Ebenezer” Scrooge. Unusual first name … one that you don’t hear too often these days … I mean, when’s the last time that you met someone named “Ebenezer” … but the name “Ebenezer” is a very, very important name in the Bible. Do any of you know what an “ebenezer” is? The word “ebenezer” comes from 1st Samuel 7. The Philistines had stolen the Ark of the covenant. The Israelites were in complete shock and disarray. It was then, the Bible tells us, that the people repented and turned their hearts back to the LORD. They sacrificed and recommitted themselves to the LORD … and they were victorious over the Philistines. To commemorate their victory, the Prophet Samuel set up a stone as a monument and called it an “ebenezer,” saying: “… for the LORD has helped us.” The Hebrew word “ebenezer” means “stone of help.”
Dickens, I assume, did not give Scrooge the first name of “Ebenezer” by accident or for no reason. An “ebenezer” is a reminder. An “ebenezer” stands as a monument to God’s faithfulness. It marks a “milestone.” It serves as a visual and physical symbol of a moment in time when everything changed. When you see an “ebenezer,” it reminds you of a time when God was faithful and delivered you out of your troubles. At the same time it reminds you that the God who delivered you then is with you now … and the same monument gives you hope that the same God who delivered you in the past is the same God who is with you now … and the same God who will be with you no matter what happens in the future. An “ebenezer” is something that you see in the present that reminds you of something from the past to give you hope for the future … simultaneously, a symbol and a monument to the past, the present, and the future … like the three spirits who will come and visit Ebenezer on the night of Christmas Eve.
“Ebenezer” … that IS the very definition and purpose of “Advent.” “Advent” comes from two Latin words … “ad” … which means “to” … and “venire” … which means “come.” “Ad-venire” … “Advent” … “to come.”
“Advent” is a sort of “ebenezer.” It stands as a reminder of the great thing that God has done in the past. We gather … we “come”… we “ad-venire” … to celebrate the birth or the “coming” … the “ad-venire” … of the Christ child. We read stories in the Old Testament in which God speaks of sending us a child … a messiah … a deliverer … a savior … an incarnate “ebenezer” made of flesh and blood.
At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus was asked to read in the synagogue of His hometown, Nazareth. Luke tell us that Jesus was given the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and read from Isaiah 61:1-2: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” He then rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. Then He began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4: 16-21). Rather than erect an ebenezer to commemorate this huge, significant event, the townspeople attempted to throw Jesus off a cliff.
Jesus was the present fulfillment of a promise that God made in the past. He had taken on flesh and came to heal the broken-hearted … to set the captive free … to give sight to the blind. Which of these three do you think fits Ebenezer Scrooge? Broken-hearted? Captive? Blind? Let’s find out, shall we?
Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge as a man who was a … “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” (Dickens. 2014. “A Christmas Carol.” New York: Global Classis; p. 3). How did Scrooge get this way? How did he become a man who was “secret, self-contained, and solitary as an oyster … edging his way along the crowded path of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance”? (p. 4).
Scrooge was a man who had disconnected himself from other human beings as much as possible. He may have run a business and had a good reputation as a businessman … but in the beginning of the story he has no authentic connection or relationship with another human being … none … no one. In fact, Dicken’s carol starts out with a very grim statement: “Marley was dead: to begin with” (Dickens, p. 3). Jacob Marley … the very last human being that Scrooge had any kind of a relationship with … even if it was only a business relationship based on the same love of money … was “dead as a door nail!” (Dickens, p. 3).
Now the only relationship Scrooge has left is with money. As Dickens observes through Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, Scrooge’s wealth appears to be of no practical use to him. “He doesn’t do any good with it,” his nephew protests. “He doesn’t make himself comfortable with it” (Dickens, p. 43). As his nephew points out, Scrooge has all this money but he doesn’t use it … and what’s the point of having money if you don’t use it, amen?
Most of us don’t actually “love” money. We don’t actually “love” a coin or a dollar bill. What we do “love” is what that coin or that dollar bill can do for us, amen? The answer to Scrooge’s “need” … not “love” … for money can be found in his past. Money is inanimate. It doesn’t talk. It doesn’t insult you or nag you or put you down. Money doesn’t call you names or hurt you. Money is just … money. Steady … sure … dependable. A quarter is a quarter … and a dollar bill will always be a dollar bill. It’s measurable … it’s predictable … it works for you … it does what you want it to do … it makes no demands upon you.
People and life on the other hand … messy and very unpredictable. Scrooge’s life is very measured … very controlled … very predictable … very safe … but as Scrooge is about to find out … it can also be very cold and very lonely. Money has no feelings and money can’t love you back.
The very first place that the Spirit or Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge is to an open country road … a place that Scrooge recognizes immediately. “God of Heaven,” cries Scrooge, “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here” (Dickens, p. 20). Even the smells brought back a “thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long-long, forgotten!” (Dickens, p. 20). “They walked along the road,” says Dickens, “Scrooge recognizing every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it! … Scrooge knew and named them every one” (Dickens, p. 20).
Seeing them as they went by brought up a feeling Scrooge hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. “How,” says Dickens, “[Scrooge] rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. How did his cold eye glisten … and his heart leap up as they went past” (Dickens, p. 20).
Where was young Scrooge? Among his cheerful classmates … shouting and laughing and wishing his friends a merry Christmas? The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to his old schoolhouse. Dickens describes it as a “large house, but one of broken fortune … for the spacious offices were little used … their walls were damp and mossy … their windows broken, and their gates decayed” (Dickens, p. 21). Inside, the main hall was dreary and the rooms were “poorly furnished, cold, and vast.” (Dickens, p. 21).
The Spirit of Christmas Past and Scrooge enter the old schoolhouse, where the ghost takes Scrooge to a room “long, bare, melancholy … made barer still by lines of plain [benches] and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire. And when Scrooge saw his poor forgotten self as he used to be” (Dickens, p. 21), he sat down upon a [bench] and wept.
It is a painful moment for Scrooge … but an important, momentous one because this is the point where Scrooge’s transformation truly beings. You see, it is not only the house that is broken … it is the boy himself who is broken too … the boy whose heart Scrooge still bears within.
Do you remember how Scrooge was living at the beginning of Dickens’ carol? When Scrooge saw his “poor forgotten self as he used to be,” (Dickens, p. 21) I really want you to use your imagination and picture it … a little boy alone on Christmas Eve … huddled by a small fire in a large, dilapidated, poorly lit, cold building. Fast forward to present-day Scrooge where we and the Spirit of Christmas Past find the grown-up Scrooge is alone on Christmas Eve … having driven away anyone that he came into contact with … the two men who came asking for a charitable donation … the young boy who was singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” at the door of his office … refusing his nephew’s invitation to come share the holiday festivities with him and his wife and friends at his home.
Again, we see Scrooge huddled by a very low fire … indeed, it was “nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel” (Dickens, p. 11). Scrooge lives in one room of a large, dilapidated, poorly lit, cold building. Hum …
It turns out that Scrooge is no better off as a grown man than he was when he was that sad little boy in the schoolhouse. In fact, he has re-created the hateful circumstances of his younger years with an unwitting fidelity … something that a lot of people do … re-creating the old wounding dynamics of their childhood and imprisoning themselves in the process. Like Scrooge, we’re so good at it that we don’t even realize that we are in prison … let alone a prison of our own construction. We lock ourselves away in self-made prisons with no doors and no windows and no way out. The only way that we can escape from these self-made prisons is if Someone else, Someone besides ourselves, opens our eyes so that we can see the prisons that we’ve built around us. We need Someone … with a capital “S” … who can break the oppression of our past, amen?
The ghosts, with their spirit of compassion, don’t handle Scrooge with kit gloves … a pretty fair description of how God has to handle us sometimes. The ghosts compel Scrooge to see things as they are. They open his eyes so that he can get a fuller, more accurate vision of himself … a painful but important first step on Scrooge’s road to repentance, redemption, and transformation.
While Scrooge and the Spirit of Christmas Past are standing there looking at the poor, forgotten Scrooge as he used to be all alone in that dreary classroom on Christmas Eve, Scrooge looks at his former self and, filled with great pity, exclaims: “Poor boy!” (Dickens, p. 22). Putting his hand in his pocket, Scrooge starts to say something. “I wish … but it’s too late now.” “What’s the matter,” the Spirit asks. “Nothing,” says Scrooge, “nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should have given him something … that’s all” (Dickens, p. 22). Wow! A light begins to shine in Scrooge’s darkness.
The importance of Christmas lies in our relationships. We don’t buy gifts for ourselves, do we? At least, I hope not, amen? We buy gifts and give them to the people in our lives. Our gifts are “ebenezers” … symbols that tell our friends and loved ones how we feel about them. They express our love and gratitude for the part or parts that they’ve played in our lives so far and they express our hope that they will continue to be with us and continue to be a part of our lives in the future.
The hymn that the young boy was singing at Scrooge’s door was “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” It’s a hymn that details how Christ’s birth was first announced to the shepherds. Shepherds were not seen as “gentlemen” in Jesus’ day … nor are they today. They were seen and are still seen as men of little means … but by the end of the hymn, the unknown author of the hymn calls all … rich and poor, high and low … to be joined together in brotherhood and love.
Dicken’s choice of the hymn “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is significant to our understanding of Scrooge. In the beginning of “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge refuses an offer of brotherhood and love. Just prior to leaving the counting house, Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, pays him a visit. His nephew is full of joy and excitement and good cheer … the absolutely last person a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” (Dickens, p. 3) wants to be around … am I right?
Fred greets his uncle with a cheerful “Merry Christmas, Uncle … God save you.” “God save you” … prophetic words, amen? “Bah! Humbug!” is Scrooge’s famous response. “Christmas a humbug, Uncle! You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? You’re poor enough” (Dickens, p. 5).
I love his nephew’s reply: “What reason have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be so morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, Uncle!” said the nephew.
“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months presented dead against? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.
“Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine” (Dickens, p. 5).
Again, I love the nephew’s response. “Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”
“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent 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. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” (Dickens, pp. 5-6).
Another really great answer, amen?
Scrooge’s nephew embodies what the hymn “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is trying to say. Christmas isn’t about gaining wealth and prosperity … rather, the season celebrates the vision that one day we will all be united as one body … bound together by shared kindness and charity.
Jesus said that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1-2 … that He came to bring good news to the oppressed … to bind up the broken hearted … to proclaim liberty to the captives … and release to the prisoners. Scrooge doesn’t see it right now but he is all of these things.
Hope is about possibility. Hope is the picture of all that God can accomplish: seeing justice served … hunger satiated … and shelter provided for the homeless. Hope is seeing a gruff, cold, cantankerous old soul like Scrooge joyfully restored and redeemed.
Here’s the funny thing. We stubbornly cling to the memory of Scrooge BEFORE he was reborn. We remember him as a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner who says “Bah!” and “Humbug!” We remember Scrooge as the man who wouldn’t let his clerk add even one tiny piece of coal to the fire in his office even though it was frightfully cold. We remember Scrooge as the man who wouldn’t donate money to help the poor … for after all, in Scrooge’s own words, that’s what prisons and poor houses are for. We remember Scrooge as the man whom even loveable, forgiving Tiny Tim didn’t like. We remember all of this about Scrooge but what we do forget is that by the end of the story Ebenezer Scrooge is a changed person … a restored person … a redeemed person. We keep Scrooge locked in a caricature of everything our Christmas celebration should be and consistently over-look the fact that Scrooge has been restored and redeemed by the end of his experience with the three spirits.
Maybe there’s still hope! Maybe over the course of Advent even Ebenezer Scrooge’s name might come to mean something different to you. After all … if Scrooge can be redeemed, then so can we, amen?
“A Christmas Carol” is a beautiful story for the Advent season because it is a tale in which the past, the present, and the future all come together in one transformative night. It is, as Scrooge’s nephew says, “… the only time I know of, in the long calendar year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave” (Dickens, pp. 5-6)
The four weeks before Christmas is a time for us to wait for Christ’s coming into the world. It’s a strange thing to wait for something to happen that we know has already occurred. For example, watching a football game doesn’t have the same energy and tension as it does when you already know who will win, amen? A surprise party isn’t much of a “surprise” if you already know that your family and friends are hiding in the living room with the lights off. A good mystery novel isn’t nearly as good if you already know in advance that the butler did it in the ballroom with a candlestick, amen?
But Advent is different. Christians profess that Christ was born … that Christ died … that Christ rose from the dead … but the story of God and His people is far from over. Christ has died … Christ has risen … and Christ WILL come again … amen?
Advent. Our “ebenezer” reminding us of what was … the past … what is … the present … and what is to come … the future.
