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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of the most beloved and well-known tales for this time of year. It presents the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a man so fond of riches that he is in danger of being trapped by the chains of what he has wrought in this life. In fact, he sees what these chains might be from the ghost of his former business partner Marley who pays him a visit on the night of Christmas Eve.
Scrooge is a man who would do anything to save a penny and is cruel to his staff, even forcing them to come to work on Christmas Day. But Scrooge was not always like this. Marley’s ghost comes to visit Scrooge to give him a warning and prepare the way for other spirits to help show Scrooge the true meaning of Christmas and Life itself.
The first of these spirits is the Ghost of Christmas Past, and this spirit shows Scrooge that he was not always as he is now. He once was a soul who cared very deeply. This is seen by his friendship with his fellow apprentices. We perceive it in the relationship with his former master, who throws a wonderful Christmas party for all his workers. It can be witnessed in the great care Scrooge gives to his sister, a woman with many health problems who, at this time, is dead, leaving behind Scrooge’s nephew. Scrooge even had a fiancée, Belle, who he planed to spend his life with, “for richer or for poorer.”
The problem for Belle wasn’t the “poorer” part of the wedding vows but the “richer”. She started to see Scrooge stray into an obsessive focus on wealth, one that he thought would protect him from the hardships of the world, hardships he was deathly afraid of. She calls off their engagement, seeing the man that Scrooge is becoming. She later finds her own happiness with another and the family they create together.
Ebenezer has meandered a great deal from the man he was. Yet with the help of the three Spirits of Christmas, he is able to find his way back. He is able to rediscover the joy he once had. He is able to demonstrate the love and kindness which, in his youth, had been extended to him.
Scrooge lost his way for a time, but with the help of beings beyond him found the path back.
Sometimes we lose our way too. When we look at our lives and our past, just as Ebenezer did, we may start to see that. Our readings today recognize this journey and give us hope to find the road back.
If there’s a key word for us this morning, it is “way”. That is so important because it is the name of our Faith. The first Christians weren’t called “Christians”. As stated in Acts, they were called followers of “The Way”.
This way is what John the Baptist was preparing us for, the same person who we’ve been hearing about in our Gospel lessons these past two weeks.
An important thing to understand about the way is that it is a path of healing. We hear this both in our Gospel and in the Prophet Isaiah, books that were written for the wandering Israelites of two ages: one to the Ancient Israelites about to be exiled from their land and the other to the leaders of the Pharisees and others who needed to hear what was really important in a live of following the Lord. These readings lay out a road where blind shall see and the deaf shall hear. Those who are lame will walk again. Even the dead shall be raised to life.
That healing is not just for our bodies though. We aren’t merely raised from death. We are saved from death, the kind of death Scrooge avoided.
We’ve all been there. We’ve all lost our way. At times many of us have forgotten to whom we belong. We’ve forgotten whose we are.
The path of the Way helps us find the direction we need once again. In fact, that’s what repentance is ultimately about, the kind of repentance that James is calling us to recognize and feel. The word ‘repent’ literally means “to turn around”.
Like Scrooge, we may have been walking in the wrong direction before. Our hope is that we can do a 180 turn. We can set back on the correct course again. We can find ourselves going back to Jesus, the one for whom John the Baptist prepared the way for all of us.
James tells us to be patient. Specifically, we’re called to be patient for the Lord. We don’t know the time and we don’t know the place where and when God will act in the world and, more particularly, in us. We have to be patient. We have to be ready so we don’t miss our chance.
Sometimes it may seem like we’ve lost our path and will never find it again. Yet we will as long as our eyes are open and paying attention. We may loose the path for a while, even for a lifetime like Scrooge. Yet there is still hope. There is hope we will find the path again, if we just look out for the lifeline God provides us in our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what this Season of Advent is all about. It’s about taking the time to see where God is pointing us and holding on to that chance, if we need it, to make that 180 back to Jesus.