Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This week marks the first Sunday in Advent, the season leading up to Christmas.
And over the course of Advent at Trinity, we're going to be looking at the ghosts of
Christmas, inspired by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Join us as we explore today how even the grumpiest of hearts can be transformed by God's grace.
We dive into the great reversal of God's kingdom and discover why hope, not humbug, is the
true message of Christmas.
So join us as we laugh, reflect, and think about how God is calling us to live in this
season.
Let's check it out.
Our first reading is from Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, verses 19 to 31.
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what
fell from the rich man's table.
Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died and was buried.
In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by
his side.
So he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire.
But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things
while Lazarus received bad things.
But now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been set in place so that
those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.
He answered, then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers.
Let them want them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
Abraham replied, they have Moses and prophets.
Let them listen to them.
No, Father Abraham, he said.
But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.
He said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced.
Even if someone arises from the dead.
Our second reading is from Luke chapter one, verses 46, 47, 52 and 53.
And Mary said, My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
The word of the Lord.
Who doesn't love a good ghost story at Christmas?
And who doesn't know the name of Charles Dickens?
And who hasn't heard of a Christmas Carol, that story where old Ebenezer Scrooge gets
visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve?
That's right.
Here at Trinity, we are going to be journeying through Advent by using this story, a Christmas
Carol to augment our Sunday teaching.
Now, I think it's perfect.
There are four ghosts and there are four Sundays in Advent.
It seems like it's perfectly set up for preaching.
But some of you might say, I don't get it.
Why?
Why on earth are we going to be looking at this story in Advent?
And some of you might be actually a little worried.
You say, oh geez, Trinity is going soft.
Trinity is going soft this Advent.
You know, I bet we're going to spend more time talking about Jacob Marley than Jesus
Christ.
Or I think we're going to talk more about the Christmas ghosts than the Holy Ghost.
But I want to say, just calm down.
Don't clutch your pearls just yet.
There are some really good reasons why we've made this choice.
And here they are.
The reason we chose this verse is because it's Advent and Advent and a Christmas Carol
are all about hope, as we just learned.
You know, Charles Dickens, he knew all about hope.
When he wrote this book, he was at the lowest point in his life.
It was a dark time for him.
He was depressed.
He was deep in debt.
He thought his career was going to be over.
But he had hope.
And he wrote this story about hope.
And of course, the rest is history.
The story of a Christmas Carol and the story in a Christmas Carol are deep reminders that
there is hope in Jesus Christ.
So it's Advent.
And that's why we're looking at this.
It's all about hope.
Secondly, though, it is relevant.
Unfortunately, there are lots of similarities between 19th century London and many places
in our world today.
The book describes a world of intolerance, a world of exclusion and social division.
Charles Dickens goes on about the inequality faced by women and children, especially the
poor.
When Dickens was 12 years old, his own family was arrested and sent to prison because they
couldn't pay a debt.
And he had to work in a sweat shop pouring shoe polish into bottles for months and months
to help pay off the debt.
So it is sad to say, but our world still struggles with many of these issues.
And so this is a relevant book to bring into our conversation.
Thirdly, though, the reason we're looking at this is because it's deeply challenging.
Dickens wrote this book partly as a challenge to the church.
Because in his day, almost half of the population went to church every Sunday and just about
everybody would have called themselves a Christian.
And yet despite the fact that all these Christians were walking around, there was still all these
social problems.
Why couldn't the church do something about the poverty and the injustice and the exploitation?
Dickens was fed up with a church that was so focused on dogma and so focused on the
institution that they ignored the poor in the process.
And so he wrote this book partly in a way to spark a revival in the church, to remind
the church of its original mission, to remind us that Jesus came to change our hearts and
soften our hearts and to open our hearts, especially to those in need.
This was meant to be a challenge and we need that challenge again today.
But fourthly, we've got to read this book because it is so absolutely influential.
This story in this book shaped Christmas, your Christmas traditions more than you know.
For the first 400 years of the church's history, Christmas was not celebrated.
Get your head around that.
And even in Dickens' day, Christmas was not a big deal.
There were no Santas, there were no elves, no Christmas trees.
People did not send Christmas cards.
People did not bake turkeys in the oven.
People did not pack churches on Christmas Eve in Charles Dickens' day.
It was a minor affair, Christmas.
It was like celebrating St. George's Day.
Do you guys know when St. George's Day is?
Exactly.
It was not a big deal.
But then along came Charles Dickens and he wrote this story and it breathed new life
into this holiday.
It was Charles Dickens who gave you many of the traditions that you love about this time
of year.
This book, you know, turned Christmas into a time of family, into a time of joy, into
a time of giving and caring for the poor.
Really influential work.
And finally, we got to read this book because it is deeply Christian.
Dickens was baptized and raised in an Anglican church, in the Church of England, right?
And he attended services regularly throughout his life.
Now he criticized the church, yes, and he said the church was hypocritical and was compromised
sometimes and prioritized doctrine over compassion, but he had a strong belief in Jesus Christ
and a deep love for Jesus' care for the poor especially.
In fact, in a letter to a friend, Dickens once wrote this.
He said, I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons
of our Lord, of our Savior, because I feel it is the best and surest way to work out
the teachings of Christianity.
In fact, Dickens wrote this little book for his own children called The Life of Our Lord.
And in that book, he in a simple way paints the picture of Jesus in a way that children
can understand.
You can even get that book now, but it was published after his death on Amazon.
So the point is the Christmas carol.
Christmas carol is a deeply Christian work.
It's a carol, after all.
A carol is a hymn.
It's a song of praise to God.
So for all those reasons, that's why we're entering into this Advent with a Christmas
carol in one hand.
But if you want to see Dickens' Christian convictions kind of right away, all you got
to do is look at the name of the main character.
The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge.
Now what does that even mean?
Scrooge, people think it comes from an old English word, scrouge, which means to squeeze,
or scrudge, which means to complain.
Don't be a Scroogey Scrooge, you guys.
But the word Ebenezer, that name actually is full of meaning, and we need to understand
where that comes from.
It's essential.
You got to turn to the book of 1 Samuel in your Bibles.
In 1 Samuel, what we find is Israel is in a state of emergency.
The country is in complete disarray.
They have just been defeated by the Philistines, and in the process, the Ark of the Covenant
of God was stolen and taken away from them.
And the reason why, the reason given for why this horrible tragedy has happened is because
they had turned away from God, and they had begun to follow false gods and false idols.
And it was then that we're told in 1 Samuel that the people said, enough of this.
Let's turn our hearts back to God, back to the Lord.
And they repented of their sins, and they offered sacrifices to God, and they made a
renewed commitment to serve the Lord only.
We're going to serve the Lord only.
And then the next time the Philistines attacked, guess what?
Israel had an amazing victory over them.
They got the Ark back.
Everything was perfect.
And so, to commemorate both the great victory and Israel's change of heart, their conversion,
if you will, Samuel took a stone, and he set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and he named
it Ebenezer, saying, thus far the Lord has helped us.
The stone, this Ebenezer, would stand there for generations and generations, and people
would pass by, and they would look at it, and they would remember the power of repentance,
and they would remember the possibility of transformation, and they'd remember the faithfulness
of God.
So why did Charles Dickens name his original, or his main character, Ebenezer?
It's because he, too, is supposed to be a marker for us.
Scrooge reminds us that repentance is powerful.
Transformation is possible.
And when we turn our lives around, God is faithful to forgive us of our sins.
Now, all that I just shared there seems really hard for some people to believe, because there's
lots of people who believe that such change is impossible.
It's not possible to change a person, we say, right?
Now, some of you might hold out hope, but most of us say, no, people don't change.
The world can't change.
Nothing ever changes.
Even I can't change.
I've been working to change these things in my life for years and years, and they're still
the same.
My sins always seem to get the better of me.
So if you're here today, and you think that change is impossible, and transformation is
a joke, and that the hope of Christmas is maybe a bit too sentimental, then you're actually
in good company.
Because Scrooge also believed that hope for a better world, hope for a better me, hope
for a better you was impossible.
Only the word that he used to describe impossible was a word, humbug.
Humbug.
You're a servant, sir.
Are you off home to keep Christmas?
I am not in the habit of keeping Christmas, sir.
Then why are you leaving so early?
Because, sir, Christmas is a habit of keeping men from doing business.
Come into nature and think that ants, toil, and grasshoppers sing and play, Mr. Scrooge.
An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is, and Christmas, sir, is a humbug.
Good day.
So humbug is the H word in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.
What does it mean, though?
It means this.
Humbug means a lie, a deception, a trick, or a fraud.
So for Scrooge, Christmas was a lie, hope was a fraud, transformation was a trick, conversion
that you could be converted and changed was an absolute deception because things never
change and people never change and the world can't change and hope is a joke.
And every time Scrooge came across somebody who had hope or who believed that change was
possible or Christmas was real, that he just laughed them off and gave them a good old
humbug.
So for example, his nephew.
I came here in the spirit of right goodwill and I won't let you down with it.
So Merry Christmas to you anyway, uncle.
Good evening.
And a Happy New Year.
Good evening.
Humbug.
But I would say that it wasn't just that Scrooge thought that hope wasn't real.
I think Scrooge actually probably also thought that God wasn't real.
For Scrooge, the supernatural was humbug, right?
There was nothing more to this world than what you could see with your eyes and touch
with your hands or count with your calculator, which is why, why, when the supernatural world
actually comes impinging onto Scrooge's life, again, his answer is humbug.
When he hears that voice, he refuses to believe because again, according to Scrooge, there's
nothing beyond this world, right?
It's all a joke.
It's a trick.
It's indigestion.
The supernatural is humbug.
And so right at the very beginning of this, we have a question to ask ourselves.
Do we believe in hope or is it all humbug?
The reason we just lit a candle of hope is that we are people who believe that it is
possible to change, that there's hope for us all, that there's hope for the most evil
tyrant and there's hope for the most hopeless situation.
So what I want to do in the time we got left is I just want to look at how hope came into
Ebenezer Scrooge's life.
We're going to look at three things.
We're going to look at his condition.
We're going to look at his confrontation and then thirdly, his invitation.
So first, Dickens spends a lot of time setting us up and describing Scrooge's condition.
And he describes it with these words.
He says, oh, but he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching,
grasping, scraping, clutching covetous old sinner, secret and self-contained and solitary
as an oyster.
The book is wonderful.
You really should get it.
It sums it up nicely.
But here is a scene in the movie that helps us see it.
In this scene, you see some people coming to Scrooge's office and they're hoping to
get a Christmas donation from him.
But it does not go well.
I don't think you quite understand us, sir.
A few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means
of warmth.
Why?
Because it is at Christmas time that warmth is most keenly felt and abundance rejoices.
What can I put you down for?
Nothing.
You wish to be an honor?
I wish to be left alone.
Since you asked me what I wish, sir, that is my answer.
I hope to support the establishments I have mentioned.
Those who are badly off must go there.
It's very comfortable there.
And some would rather die.
If they would rather die, they'd better do it and decrease the selfless population.
Besides, it's not my business.
Isn't it, sir?
No.
It is enough for a man to understand his own business without interfering with other people's.
Mine occupies me constantly.
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
Well the first thing we learn about Scrooge's condition is that he is financially consumed.
His life revolves around money.
Money is the lens through which he views the world and measures all success.
People are either obstacles or tools in pursuit of profit.
He's financially consumed.
Secondly, he's emotionally cold.
He says, oh, if they want to die, they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population.
He's talking about the poor.
He's got no empathy for the poor or for the suffering.
Human life has no worth to him unless, again, it helps him make a profit.
Thirdly, we see that he's relationally isolated.
He wants to be left alone.
Dickens describes him as secret and self-contained, as solitary, as an oyster.
He's cut himself off from others, and this actually just feeds this cycle of isolation
and selfishness in his life.
And then fourthly, I would say he's spiritually blind.
He says that every idiot who goes about with a Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled
with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
Right?
Like, he is, his dislike, his hatred of Christmas betrays a heart that is cut off from God,
closed off from faith.
He mocks people who believe in Christmas.
Now, you look at this list, and here's my worry.
My worry is some of you are going to say, oh, isn't it crazy?
Look at this guy.
What a joke.
Nobody's actually like that, right?
This is just a caricature, right?
No one is that bad.
But not so fast.
We may have more in common with him than we'd like to admit.
I mean, Scrooge's obsession with wealth is nothing new, right?
It's a common struggle today.
I mean, maybe we're not as extreme, but we tie our worth to money and success and possessions.
We live in a consumer-driven world, so do we prioritize getting ahead, all the while
overlooking the joy of the moment and the needs around us?
That's a good question.
Scrooge, yes, he's cold, and he's logical in his compassion for the poor, but we too
can be pretty desensitized to the needs of the world.
Wouldn't you agree?
We watch enough news, pretty soon we stop caring.
Oh, somebody else will look after that, or that's not my problem.
So Scrooge forces us to ask, are we growing numb to human suffering ourselves?
Scrooge, yes, he's financially, he's relationally isolated, but loneliness in our world is also
rising.
You've heard us talk about this before.
We're connected through social media, and yet we still feel more and more alone.
So hey, like Scrooge, do we hold others at arm's length out of fear, out of busyness?
Do we feel disconnected?
And of course, Scrooge rejects anything beyond the material world, much like our modern culture.
We're skeptical of God too, if we're honest.
Many people are.
Life just becomes about work and survival.
Who's got time to think about the deeper meaning of life and pay attention to spiritual realities?
No, no, no, Scrooge's condition is a lot more like ours than you might think.
In fact, keep your eyes on your inbox, because our church drama team has created kind of
a modern retelling of Scrooge, and every week we're going to drop a video by email, and
you can kind of follow along as we go.
Kind of a modern telling of Scrooge for today.
The point is, we too can focus on wealth, we too can guard our emotions, isolate ourselves,
and live without a spiritual perspective.
But Advent, Advent calls us to examine our hearts and to find those places where we have
become like Scrooge, and see how God might be challenging us, and God confronting us
to change.
That brings us to Scrooge's confrontation.
One Christmas Eve, all of Scrooge's assumptions and carefully constructed worldviews are going
to come crashing down around him, because the spiritual world, which he was certain
did not exist, and all nonsense and humbug breaks into his life in a way that he can't
deny.
And it all begins with a visit from his old business partner, who's been dead for seven
years, a ghost of Jacob Marley.
Do you believe in me or not?
Do you believe in that or if you're not?
I wear the chain I forged in life I made it link by link and yard by yard I girded it
on my own free will and my own free will. I wore it.
By the way we're watching this movie today at five o'clock here at the church so you
can join us and watch the whole thing. But in this scene Scrooge is not only startled
by the supernatural but he genuinely does not understand why Jacob Marley is wearing
change. Marley was everything Scrooge thought a person should be right? Hardworking, profit
driven, focused on business and yet here he is in torment and why is that? This confrontation
actually turns Scrooge's world upside down. In the world that Scrooge knows it's the rich
who are celebrated, the powerful are rewarded and the poor, the poor are just a surplus
population. But what he's discovering that in God's kingdom the scales are reversed and
the script is flipped. It's like what Mary said as we read this morning when she discovered
she was going to give birth to Jesus Christ she sang this song that shows a world turned
upside down where God has brought down mighty kings from their thrones and lifted up the
lowly where he fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away with empty
hands. The fact that Jesus Christ was born in a lowly manger is not a mistake, it's no
accident it's all part of the reversal right? The first becoming last, the last becoming
first, the rich becoming poor, the poor becoming rich. It's all woven, the kingdom story is
woven into the Christmas story itself. Scrooge's encounter with Marley is this moment of realization
oh my gosh he's been living by the wrong story, he's been going about the wrong business.
But it was only that you were a good man of business Jacob. Business! Mankind was my business,
their commonwealth there was my business. In the kingdom of God mankind is the business,
people matter more than profits. Scrooge always believed it was every man for himself but
God's heart goes out to the poor and the rejected and the ignored. Now this confrontation with
Marley it looks just like a story that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 16 about a wealthy man
who lives in luxury oblivious to the needs around him especially to this poor man named
Lazarus who's begging at his gate every day just wanting a little bit of food. When both
men die the roles are reversed. Lazarus is comforted while the rich man finds himself
in torment. The rich man he begs for relief but he's told it's too late, it's too late.
His disregard for others has sealed his fate. He pleads with Lazarus, Lazarus please go
tell my brothers so that they don't end up making the same mistake. He says I beg you
father send Lazarus to my family, let him warn them so they don't come to this place
of torment. If someone from the dead goes to them they will repent but the response
is quite sobering. No, if they don't listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be
convinced even if someone rises from the dead. Isn't this sound familiar? I mean Charles
Dickens knew his Bible, right? Mankind was my business. Marley could have said those
words just as easily as this parable could have said these words. Both the parable and
Marley's vision are wake up calls for you and for me reminding us how we treat others,
how we treat the vulnerable, it matters so much in God's kingdom. It's funny though
that actually shortly after saying this parable Jesus himself would rise from the dead and
would come to people not just with a warning but also with a hope that change is possible
not just in eternity but we can change here and now change our lives all those parts of
our life that are dead, our coldness, our greed, our intolerance, they don't have to
stay that way. Christ can breed new life into us and that's actually the striking difference
between these two stories. The rich man in Jesus' parable is unable to warn his brothers,
it's too late but Marley tells Scrooge it's actually not too late, there is still a chance
and that's why we have to end with this invitation. Scrooge didn't know it at the time but when
Marley comes to him he's inviting him not just to see his sins but to repent and turn
toward a new way of living. Marley says it's too late for me, it's too late for me for
no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused but, and this
is a very big but, it's not too late for you. I'm here tonight to warn you that you have
yet a chance and a hope of escaping my fate.
Hear me, my time is nearly gone. I come tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and
hope of escaping my fate, a chance and hope of my procuring heaven.
Thank you Jacob, you were always a good friend of mine.
You will be visited by three spirits.
What? Was that the chance of hope that you mentioned Jacob?
Did one?
Oh well, that is never mind, I think I'd rather not.
You cannot hope to shun the power thy tread. Expect the first when the bell toms one.
Scrooge doesn't like it but he's been given a chance. The three spirits that visit him
are going to help lead him out of his old life, his old world view into a new life.
Just like Isaiah wrote, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light and on
those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
And so once again, here we are with this choice, hope or humbug.
The great hope of the gospel is that you can change, that the world can be changed, your
situation can be changed.
The Israelites put up their Ebenezer as a signpost of hope and this Advent we are putting
up this Ebenezer as a signpost for us.
Change is possible, God is faithful.
So this Advent, please I want to encourage all of you, take this opportunity to step
back and examine your own hearts and surrender those sinful parts, those selfish parts, those
shameful parts of your own life that shackle you like Marley's chains.
Because the light of Christ is breaking into the world, offering a fresh start, not just
to prepare for Christmas but to prepare for God's kingdom.
But please do not dawdle.
In one of the freakier scenes of the book and where we're going to end today, we see
all the spirits of the dead wailing in torment.
Why are they wailing?
Why?
Because they can't do good anymore, it's too late.
Marley explains the misery with them all is that they will never have the power to do
good again.
The spirits of the dead are wailing because they can no longer help the living.
What a warning for us.
One day it will be too late, too late to help, too late to change.
We don't act quickly, we're going to find ourselves trapped by the decisions that we've
made, decisions that might not be able to be undone.
But it's not too late now.
There's always a window of opportunity.
The light of Christ is shining.
So let me speak Marley's words to you today.
I'm here today to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope.
Whatever you're facing, whatever old wounds, whatever attitudes, regrets, whatever addictions,
you have a chance and hope.
It'll mean flipping your world upside down.
It'll mean redefining what success looks like for you.
But don't wait.
Now is the moment.
The light of Christ is shining.
Like Scrooge, acknowledge your own condition.
You know, confront your issues with God and then accept God's invitation to be transformed.
And when you do, you'll learn that hope is in fact no humbug.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario on December
1st, 2024.