I have always loved Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol. I’ve got the book, seen many if not all of the film versions, including Jim Henson’s A Muppet Christmas Carol. Of course, books are always better as they cover the finer details that end up on the cutting room floor and not shown on the screen.
It’s a familiar tale to most, with Ebenezer Scrooge being visited by the spirit of Jacob Marley, his former business partner. He visited Scrooge in an attempt to save his soul. Scrooge says “You are fettered. Tell me why.” Marley replies “I wear the chains forget in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know, the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
Of course Scrooge looks around sees nothing of his own chain nor its weight.
Marley was wearing the ponderous chains he “forged in life” as a punishment for not making better use of his time on earth. Scrooge protests, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.” To which Marley laments, “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!”
“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!”
So for maybe a week or so, many people take Dicken’s message / The Christmas Message of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men” into action by serving the common good, and taking solidarity to heart. All too soon, however, it’s back to the daily grind and these messages begins to fade. By New Year’s Day the entire message has usually been neatly packed away in storage along with all the decorations until we pull them out next year.
Is it a coincidence that the materialistic secular Christmas advertising noise ratchets up to a frenzied pitch in concert with the Season of Advent – one of preparation and penitence. Almost… as if .. the message of faith, of hope and of love are neutralized by the messages of selfish wants, and desires.
Marley came back to warn his good friend. Be like Christ this Christmas Season and all year long as mankind is your business.
Happy Advent Season!
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
Social justice tells us that, when people are suffering hardship and oppression, their business is our business. We are to keep that in mind all year long.
