Lessons from a Christmas Carol


We were recently in Penang for the weekend, and managed to catch Robert Zemeckis' Christmas Carol. It is quite a disturbing Christmas Carol, with a number of scary images (it opens with the image of Jacob Marley dead in his coffin with coins over his eyes!), so it's not a kids show by any stretch of the imagination. My kids were noticeably sober when we got out, 3D glasses notwithstanding, and frankly so was I!

Anyway, the familiar lessons of the Christmas Carol story continue to be thought provoking today. One particularly stuck in my mind - perhaps because it was the most disturbing! Ebenezer Scrooge's first encounter of Christmas Eve is with the ghost of Jacob Marley, his former business partner. Jacob Marley is bound with heavy chains to his moneyboxes, which he is cursed to haul around. The conversation Jacob Marley has with Scrooge is quite illuminating.

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Jacob Marley: I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my own free will and by my own free will, I wore it!

Ebenezer Scrooge: You have my sympathy.

Jacob Marley: Ah! You do not know the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself! It was as full and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah, it is a ponderous chain!

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How scarily true is that? So many of us create, yard by yard, and link by link, our own heavy chains, to our selfish desires and vain ambitions. And even as we cast our judgmental eyes on others around us, we do not realise what a heavy chain we ourselves bear, and worse, continually build!

In a scene shortly thereafter, Jacob Marley bids farewell to Ebenezer Scrooge, and opening the window, shows him the crowd of ghosts, similarly chained, but to various other things of the world, crying and lamenting in the streets.

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Jacob Marley: It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men! If it goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death! It is doomed to wander through the world! Oh, woe is me! And witness what it cannot share but MIGHT HAVE SHARED on Earth and turned to happiness!

...

Jacob Marley: Look to see me no more. But look here [at the other ghosts], that you may remember for your own sake what has passed between us!

Ebenezer: Why do they lament?

Jacob Marley: They seek to interfere for good in human matters, and have lost their power forever.

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What Charles Dickens was saying is that all men have a duty to do good to other men, and that the curse of the ghosts was to wander through the world and witness what it can no longer do, but might have done to turn to happiness. In other words, the ghosts are cursed to forever regret the good they should have done.

In some ways it is a parallel to what the Bible records of the conversation between the beggar Lazarus, the rich man and Abraham. Luke 16:25 records that the rich man asked for relief as he was in torment in hell, and Abraham replied "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 fixed, so that those who want to go from from here to you cannot, not can anyone cross over from there to us." It's important to note that the beggar Lazarus was at the rich man's gate everyday, meaning that the rich man could have helped but didn't - the point being made is that the rich man had no love for his fellow man, not that the rich man was rich per se. Having said that, yo those whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48).

Let's resolve to remember the lessons of Christmas, the great gifts and blessings God has given to those of us lucky enough to be living here in Singapore, to count our blessings, whether it is jobs, health or family etc. and remember what He expects of us. To love our neighbour as ourselves.

I'll close with this final quote from Dickens:

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Jacob Marley: In life, my spirit never rose beyond the limits of our money-changing holes! Now I am doomed to wander without rest or peace, incessant torture and remorse!

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob!

Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

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This Christmas, let's do God's business, and He will take care of ours!

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