“A Christmas Carol” is one of my favorite stories, and one I look forward to reading it every year at this time. Charles Dickens’ vivid imagery lets me smell the Cratchits’ goose, see Fred and Topper playing their Christmas games and ache for Tiny Tim. I feel a warm sense of joy when I finish the book, much like a reformed Scrooge myself, and take Dickens’ words to heart, vowing to try to keep the Christmas spirit alive and well throughout the year.
In reading it this year, I am reminded that, despite the title, this book is perfect for Advent. Advent is a season of looking forward to the second coming of Christ, while also immediately preparing to celebrate his first coming. While simultaneously looking back and looking forward, we’re asked to prepare our hearts in anticipation.
Scrooge’s example of embracing the season should serve as our guide. He shows us how to confront our own shortcomings and commit to improving ourselves as we prepare ourselves for Christ.
Like Scrooge, we should use Advent to examine our conscience. He is confronted with the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, and sees the long chain that he carries with him in the afterlife. Marley bemoans his own greed and selfishness, implicating Scrooge in the same sins.
Likewise, we should examine our own conscience — what chains have we forged in life that bog us down? What do we devote our hearts to that keeps us from keeping Christmas alive in our hearts — meaning, keeps us from generosity and sacrifice?
As the story continues, Scrooge examines his past, present, and future, and the nature of Advent means that we are asked to do the same. The story weaves gloom and delight into a simple message of kindness, love, and charity for our fellow man.
This wonderfully captures a way for us to approach Advent — while certainly serious at times, calling for our repentance, Advent also gives us the joy of looking forward to the Lord and his coming, as we also prepare to remember his first coming
Dickens uses Tiny Tim as an explicit Christ figure: his father, Bob Cratchit, informs us that Tim “hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” As Scrooge grows to care for the fragile yet optimistic child, he is in fact honoring Christ, as we are called to do, by helping others in need and living beyond ourselves.
The climax of the story occurs when Scrooge meets with the last ghost, the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come, who serves as a grim reminder of what awaits. This figure, while so at odds with the joyful Ghost of Christmas Present, or the happy memories Scrooge relives with the Ghost of Christmas Past, is a poignant and relevant figure during Advent. Scrooge is confronted with a bleak eventuality of his own death, and he’s forced to recognize the wicked and lonely path he is on currently. As we, too, look forward, not to our end but to Christ’s second coming, like Scrooge, will we be horrified by what we see? Will we be driven to repentance?
The chilling thought might be uncomfortable, but consider the impact this stark reminder has on Scrooge, and what it can have on us; by the end of his encounter with the ghosts, Scrooge is a changed man and is prepared to serve the poor and the needy. As we prepare, in a few weeks, to celebrate the first coming of Christ into the world, we look at Christmas Yet to Come — his second coming into this world. We, too, should be changed by our encounter with Christ and should live generously and charitably.
So, like Scrooge — reformed and jubilant — we should welcome Advent with open arms, and examine how we prepare the way for Christ and keep him and his feast day alive in our hearts each year. We should find joy in looking into his first coming as we always look forward to his second coming, by serving others and living charitably. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, everyone!
McDermott is a parishioner of Our Lady of Hope Church in Sterling.
Pentecost Sunday