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Jeremiah 33. 14-16
14 “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.
15 “‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’
The days are coming. The days are coming when something new will arrive among us. The days are coming for justice and righteousness. The days are coming when the good promises made will be fulfilled. The days are coming…
In November 2017 Sarah and I were visiting family in England, and at the suggestion of my grandmother we all visited Chatsworth House, a historic country estate. The house and grounds were somewhat molded after the palace of Versailles, so calling it a house is a little misleading. Grand and opulent, Chatsworth has played host to many famous British scenes, as well as spurred the imagination for many famous stories, including books like Pride and Prejudice, as Jane Austin had been a visitor among others. But the November we visited, Chatsworth was hosting a massive decorative festival celebrating the literary works of Charles Dickens under the theme: Dickens at Christmas. As you can imagine, the grand old house, all dressed up in full Christmas splendor, put even Disneyland to shame. But as impressive as the spectacle was throughout the house, what I treasure most dearly about our visit that day, was the chance of viewing the historic guestbook. Among hundreds of other names, there it was, in ordinary black ink, the handwriting of a man responsible for so much Christmas creativity – the humble signature of Charles Dickens himself.
Now the name Charles Dickens will mean a great deal to some of you, and precious little to others. So, for the sake of togetherness, allow us a moment of backstory. Dickens was a 19th century writer, made famous by works like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. He was both a great novelist, and an influential voice for social change in his time. But many people know Dickens best for his famous seasonal ghost story, A Christmas Carol. First released in 1843, A Christmas Carol tells the story of a miserly old money lender named Ebeneezer Scrooge. Here’s how Dickens describes his main character:
“…Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him…External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty…Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge…But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.”[i]
Ebeneezer Scrooge is one of English literature’s best loved characters and dozens of interpretations of A Christmas Carol have spun off since it was first published. You may have a favourite version yourself. Among others there’s the 1939 film with Alister Sim, and of course the Muppets’ version, staring Michael Cain, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. And consider this: if you’ve ever enjoyed a Christmas story in which a cruel, dismal character is warmed by the fire of Christmas spirit, you’re probably enjoying a Dickens’ knock off. I doubt very much if movies like It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf would ever have been made were it not for Charles Dickens and his little Christmas Carol. Whether you indulge the frivolities of the season or not, for better or worse, A Christmas Carol is bound up with a great deal of western Christmas imagination. Dickens, within the Victorian era itself, produced many of the festive traditions held dear today.
The story had an immediate impact in 19th century London. Dickens wasn’t just writing a cutesy Christmas tale, but a call to kindness and goodness in a time when the city’s poor were often overlooked and mistreated. The book was first released on December 19th and sold out by Christmas Eve. Its popularity produced an uptick in donations to help those in need that very season.[ii] And the story only grew more popular year after year, as Dickens would go on to preform public readings of the novella some one hundred and seventy times before he died. A Christmas Carol is probably Charles Dickens’ feature legacy in more ways than one. How much money has it raised for those in need? How many families has it brought closer together? How many of us, at the end of a long year in the doom and gloom of winter, have felt a tug at the arm away from the cliff-edge of fear and scarcity toward a warmer disposition of goodness and kindness? Just as Charles Dickens hoped it might, this strange little ghost story has endured. As he wished in the very preface of the book: may it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
But the spooky story of Ebeneezer Scrooge isn’t only beloved because of the Christmas tradition it spawned, or it’s great literary impact, or even its enduring social influence. The story is beloved because it’s an honest and compelling tale of redemption. What if the world is not a place to be feared or escaped, asks Dickens, and we human beings are not to treat one another as strangers or enemies. As the story goes, what if a creature so bitter, so broken, so uncaring as Ebeneezer Scrooge can be warmed, can come to his senses, can be transformed into someone more human? A Christmas Carol is a story of redemption, and the narrative arc of that one character, Scrooge, evokes in us that long-standing Christian and therefore Christmas theme: hope.
Along Scrooge’s road to reconciliation, Dickens appeals to what’s best in us; that ultimately, it’s foolish to live cold and detached, and it’s wise to grow in warmth, connection and generosity. We feel for the impoverished Cratchit family, or maybe we have felt like the Cratchit family. Like Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, we might know the pain of family disconnection when the old miser refuses his nephew’s hospitality. Maybe we known the joy of a party in the name of Christmas, and have met along the way our own versions of Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig. So God bless Charles Dickens, because we need voices like his in our time now when the world feels dark and dangerous and we’re tempted to shut one another out, not to mention God. We need voices that speak to us about hope and change, and the possibility of a world full not of cruelty and indifference, but of mercy and generosity. Charles Dickens heard that voice (after all the voice and message didn’t originate with him), and in his own creative way he simply channeled it. Because at the center of A Christmas Carol (ghosts, frivolities, and all) beats the heart of this whole coming season. A season which reminds us of that new chapter in the redemption story – the hope chapter, as we heard from the prophet Jeremiah, the “days are coming” chapter.
Jeremiah 33.14-16
Speaking of Jeremiah, we might remember that we’ve not arrived at Christmas just yet – hence the name of our series. We’re just getting started, because today marks the beginning of the season many call Advent, which means arrival. But Advent is not about a singular arrival, but a number of arrivals. This time of year, we think about the ancient history of the Hebrew people and their Scriptures, and their longing for long-promised salvation and renewal. Following on from that history, of course, we think about the arrival of Jesus as an infant, the fulfillment of that promise beyond even the wildest of imaginations. And we think about Jesus’ promised arrival again to us, his return in the future. Advent is about arrivals: what was promised and what was fulfilled; what is promised and is yet to come. So Advent, at its core, is about hope. We remember that people have hoped in the past, and God came through. And we still hope today, trusting that God will come through again. This is the first Sunday of Advent, which carries with it the traditional theme of hope. And, as we read at the beginning of our time, the hope we focus on at Advent and Christmas is rooted firmly in God and God’s promises to his people. Because from that root of hope, sprang Jesus. And on Jesus we now hang our hope.
Back to Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah lived in some dark days. His city and nation had turned their backs on their God. They paid lip service, but in the end their hearts and worship were divided. This led the people down some dangerous roads, and Jeremiah was the prophet given to herald not only warning, but judgement. But for all the warning and judgement we find in the book of Jeremiah, and there is plenty, we also find that he is a prophet of hope. Even if Jeremiah’s people had gone the wrong way, even if they would suffer the consequences of their idolatry, there was still hope. Because even when idolatry was at its height, when the road taken led to bitter ends, even when it seemed like no redemption was possible, Jeremiah insisted that all was not lost. There was a seed of hope. “The days are coming…” Change was possible. Repentance, reconciliation, renewal was not entirely out of reach. The days are coming, said Jeremiah. There was still hope.
What Right Have You to Be Merry?
Back to Dickens and Scrooge and a dim, dark London counting house. In walks Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, full of charm and joy. For many years he’s been rebuffed by his uncle, but won’t let that stop him and is resolved to try once more. Fred wishes his Uncle Scrooge a Merry Christmas and invites him to dinner for Christmas day. Scrooge fires back:
“What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? Your poor enough”. Fred has inherited his uncle’s wit, “Come, then, what right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough…” “Bah”, says Scrooge, “Humbug”.
Well, we won’t go on, but only to ask the question: what right does Fred have to be merry? Scrooge has a point, Fred’s not well off, and his marriage to a poor woman hasn’t helped his financial state in the least. From Scrooge’s seat in the cold counting house, Fred is a fool, as is all the world if can’t see how bleak and perilous things truly are. Fred’s following speech in the story, however, sums up that his right and reason to be merry springs from the festive season itself:
“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round–apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that–as good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys…”[iii]
Fred asks if it’s possible to separate the goodwill we share at Christmas from the season’s sacred name and origin – the name and birth of Christ. For me, I don’t think it is. So, what right does Fred have to be merry? He has right to be merry because of the goodness he sees emerging this time of year. A goodness springing from the hope rooted in the season’s sacred name and origin: the Advent of God with us.
What Right Have You to Be Merry?
Every December we’re asked the same questions by a harsh and frightened world. What right have you to be merry? Haven’t you read the news? Aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you guarding yourself against suffering, injustice, loss? Aren’t you keeping your distance? Are you really going to sing about hope, peace, joy, love in a world like this? What right and reason do you have to be merry? And every year, we must stair that despairing, anxious attitude in the face and say: I have a right and reason to be merry, because I have a right and reason to hope. The world needs us to carry hope, to share hope, to sing about hope, because, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, the world is not beyond redemption and reconciliation. Our friends, our families, our neighbors need us to carry hope because they’re not too far gone either. We need to focus on hope also, because sometimes the one looking back at us in the mirror looks less than hopeful too.
“The days are coming”, says Jeremiah. Hope is not foolishness, but trust in God, in all things. We hope and trust because of what God’s done, and we hope and trust in what God promises next. So every year we read and sing, and read and sing. And every year we remember: God really did come through. God really did arrive among us, “the Lord Our Righteous Saviour”. He’s here now by his Spirit, and works through our kindness and charity. God will arrive again to bring justice, righteousness, peace, and life eternal to his creation once and for all. That is our right and reason to be merry – to have hope. And so, as is tradition, we sing the Advent carol again this December. We open our worrying, our fearing, our suffering and our longing to “The Lord our Righteous Saviour”, and we risk hope. Amen.
[i] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
[ii] https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/12/charles-dickens-a-christmas-carol-story-of
[iii] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Luke Knight 