Robert Lowery

What in the world does Charles Dickens, the nineteenth century British author, have to do with the first century prophet John? I made a connection just the other night after reading Dickens’s short story, A Christmas Carol. The re-reading of this classic work intersected with a paper I had graded earlier in the evening, a paper written by one of the students enrolled in my class on Revelation. Over the years I have discovered that reading novels and short stories enhances my reading of Scripture and that Scripture helps me evaluate the stories offered by such individuals as Dickens. This discovery helped me merge the theology of John and Dickens late that evening.

Most of us are familiar with the characters in the story published in 1843, from Ebenezer Scrooge to Jacob Marley to Bob Cratchit and his family, notably Tiny Tim—if not from reading the short story at least from watching one of the many movie versions. Two of the most well-known lines in literature are Scrooge’s retort to anyone brave enough to speak of the celebration of Christmas in his presence: “Bah! Humbug.” and Tiny Tim’s benediction: “God Bless Us, Every One!”

But what does the London of Dickens’s day have to do with the Asia Minor of John’s era? How do the messages of John and Dickens connect? And what do both stories have to do with us? In answering these questions, I need to set the stage for a marvelous grace-filled statement made by Scrooge near the end of the tale.

You will recall that late on Christmas Eve Scrooge is visited by three spirits, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. In fact, the story was originally subtitled “Ghost Story of Christmas,” the accent on the ghostly—not the Christmas-y—elements of the story. In the first edition’s preface Dickens writes: “I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.”

When the Ghost of Christmas Past makes his appearance, he takes Scrooge back into his past, a time when he spurned the love of a young woman and resolved to be a wealthy man no matter the cost.

It is from the Ghost of Christmas Present that Scrooge is confronted by his own words, words which show an insensitivity to people and a preoccupation with his own business affairs, and at the end of the visit he is “overcome with penitence and grief.”

The Ghost of Christmas Future is the most terrifying visitor of all that evening, arriving “draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him,” and in the spirit-led visit to a cemetery Scrooge sees his own corpse.

Because of those visits that night, we are told that Ebenezer Scrooge learned “how to keep Christmas well.” His life is transformed. One of the most powerful lines in the story is spoken to the last spirit whose trembling hand clings to the broken man, and Scrooge makes a vow:

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three
shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

John writes about the day that the Spirit of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future visited him. It was a Lord’s Day, but not just any Lord’s Day. It was the day that John was given a vision that should cause us to tremble and be transformed:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God
and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him . . .
Rev. 1:5b-7a

For us today, the Spirit reminds us of Christmas Past: We have been liberated from our sins!

For us today, the Spirit reminds us of Christmas Present: We have been liberated to live for the praise and glory of God as priests serving in the Kingdom!

For us today, the Spirit reminds us of Christmas Future: We have been liberated to live for God in order to dwell with him forever and ever!

Dickens closes his story by writing that Ebenezer Scrooge “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

May we not shut out the message that the Spirit taught John.

May we know how to keep Christmas well.

May we be blessed as we read the revelation given to John which closes with its own benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”