Dear one,
At this time of year, many pastors find themselves focused upon added worship preparations and services, even as year-end, budgetary concerns are thrown into the mix. Of course, this description reflects our American culture and pastoral ministry within that context; but I do not think it misses the mark greatly for pastors in Romania, Uganda, and Malawi. That is, generally we pastors are activists, always caring for the flock: Who’s in the hospital? Who’s unhappy? Who needs to be challenged? Who needs a listening ear? What must be done? Always something, always someone … and especially now.
Aware of our American activism, which American pastors mirror, recently I’ve been asking: In the living of these Advent-to-Christmas days, wherein is the “good news”? Admittedly, my asking this question has been greatly influenced by my rereading of Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol.In my doing so, I have observed our cultural tendencies: whether through plays, musicals, movies, etc. we have removed the Gospel elements Dickens obviously intended.
For instance, Dickens provided Scrooge’s nephew with this greeting, “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” soon followed by the nephew’s observation:
“I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time”.
Clearly, at Christmas time Dickens desired his contemporaries to actively care for the poor and needy, in keeping with “its sacred name and origin”; but he also knew that such care came from changed hearts: lives “reclaimed,” as the Spirit of Christmas Past indicated, lives blessed by God à la Tiny Tim—and by God, Scrooge changed.
As reflected in our cultural expunging of A Christmas Carol, my point is this: in the month of December we have simply ratcheted-up our activism: seeking to appease, to prove, to help, to display without the corresponding and necessary heart-change; without the good news that there is One who repeatedly enters into our world (even as a babe); who will not abandon us to our tendencies to be “tight-fisted [hands] at the grindstone”; and who invites and enables us to be loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled, even as He is (cf. Galatians 5:22). May we learn from Scrooge’s “reclamation.”
Hopefully,
Stan
Ps. I do not claim that Dickens was a profound Biblical theologian, but I do believe that, with artful whimsy, he “sang” Gospel notes throughout his Carol.