Colossians 3:12-17
As
God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another, and if
anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as God has
forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Jesus rule
in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. Be thankful. Let
the word of Jesus dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all
wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs to God; and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name
of Jesus, giving thanks to God through him.
“Sing
a new song unto the Lord, let your songs be sung from mountains high.
Sing
a new song unto the Lord, singing
Alleluia!”**
******************************************************************************
Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own.
Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in! ``I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!'' Scrooge babbled, as he scrambled out of bed. ``The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!''
He was so flustered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would barely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
``They are not torn down,'' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, ``they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!''
His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
``I don't know what to do!'' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect fool of himself with his stockings. ``I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world!''
*****************************************************************************
He
went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying
to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked
down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows: and found that
everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk -- that
anything -- could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps
towards his nephew's house, for dinner.
******************************************************************************“Merry
Christmas, Bob!'' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken,
as he clapped him on the back. ``A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than
I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to
assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very
afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and
buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.''
Scrooge
was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim,
who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old
city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the
alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at
which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and
knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well
that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less
attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Advent and Christmas – a journey
from the desert of John the Baptist to a small cave behind an inn; a call to
repent, to examine our lives and ourselves, to change our lives.
We stopped along the way, at a
place called Hope. Hope in something new, hope for a future, hope that we can
change, hope tied up in a star, a comet, whatever, leading the way and lighting
the path.
The second stop was Peace – the
outgrowth of Hope, that the world can change, that we can change the world so
that it is a place where all can live, and grow. Hope that we can change.
Still led by the Star, we heard a
young woman sing a song as old as earth, a song of Joy – and yet a radical song
where the accepted order of things is turned upside down, where the poor and
destitute are fed and clothed, where work and education and health care and
shelter is available for everyone – and where the rich are no longer first nor
in control. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. In Mary’s
song, she says “The rich shall be sent away empty.”
The last part of the road, where we
encounter Love – love in all its richness; love of companionship, love of
friendship, the love of life, the love of the world and the love of the call
into the world. Love manifested in a child, a baby – not only a baby, but one
born into the poorest of circumstances, to two people with a tiny income; who
arrived too late to even find a room in the hotel, and instead had to shelter
in the space where the animals were kept.
…and yet – because of this one
child, so many things changed. Mary and Joseph sang a new song – a song which
encompassed hope, peace, joy, and love. Angels sang a completely new song, one
they had never sung before; the shepherds too, sang a new song – something they
had never heard, yet in the depths of their souls, they knew.
So too, on Christmas morning, an
old man bounced out of bed. He too had been on a journey – one in which parts
of his life were brought back to him; his cruelty about the poor around him,
suggesting they could die and decrease the surplus population, complaining
about the taxes laid on him to support factories and poorhouses; who had no
time for family or friends. His journey took him through celebrations – seeing that
while he had no joy in his life, those so much less affluent could find immense
joy in the very act of living. His journey took him right to the doorstep of his
own physical death, and showed him the result of the lost chances to use what
he had to make the world a better place. Each of the spirits who visited him
pointed out the chance of reclamation, of redemption.
So on Christmas morning, he bounced
out of bed, literally singing a whole new song, and dancing a whole new dance. He
stepped off on the road of Advent, and found along the way, the meaning of
Hope, Peace and Joy – and most of all, Love. Love of family, love of neighbour
– indeed, he has learned who his neighbour really is. There is no outright mention of religion in this
story, not really, except right at the beginning in the words of Marley – was
there no poor home to which the light of the star might had guided him, if he
had lifted his eyes instead of always looking down. Yet the word is as clear as
can be.
Ebenezer Scrooge, the wealthy old
miser who hid in his office even on the death of his partner, is redeemed. He
has learned what his poor assistant already knew. One does not need money to be
happy; but with money and no humanity, one cannot ever hope to live.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is considered
one of the foremost Jewish theologians of the 20th century. He said that the time for the coming of the realm may be far off, but the task is
plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There
is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd, a war
that is incessant, universal. Loyal to
the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear
that human beings are more than just human beings, that in doing the finite we
may perceive the infinite.
“The greatest problem” he said “ is not how to continue but how to exalt
our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there
is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave.
Eternity is not a perpetual future but actually a perpetual presence. The seed
of eternal life has been planted in us. The world to come is not just a
hereafter but also a here and now.”
There’s a little song Rabbi Heschel
composed, and I believe it’s the song Scrooge sang as he bounced out of bed
that Christmas morning: “Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy. Just
to be, just to live, is a blessing, is holy”
Let’s sing:
Sources:
1. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
2. From "Sing a New Song", by Daniel Schutte.
No comments:
Post a Comment