Rev. Dr. Doug Showalter Scripture: II Corinthians 5:14-21 The Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, MA January 8, 2012 Copyright 2012 "Spiritual Rebirth: God s Christmas Good News" "BAH, HUMBUG!" So said Ebeneezer Scrooge, in response to his nephew Fred's wish that he have a Merry Christmas. "BAH, HUMBUG!" Then as Scrooge went on to tell his nephew, What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through this heart. He should! 1 Thus spoke Ebenezer Scrooge, whom Charles Dickens described as that "squeezing wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner." During the Christmas and New Year season, nearly everyone loves to hear the story, "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens. Aside from the Bible itself, Dickens' "Christmas Carol" is one of the world's best loved Christmas stories. Why is that so? Why, at this time of year, do we Christians take such pleasure in hearing about a skin-flint old merchant who suffered three nightmares? As Scrooge himself said, those nightmares were likely due to nothing more, than just "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of an underdone potato." Why do we love "A Christmas Carol" so? I think we love it for this reason. In dramatic form Dickens' story reveals one of the greatest truths of God s Christmas. It reveals the truth of spiritual re-birth.
-2- Ebenezer Scrooge may have been an old "so-and-so." He may have been a selfish, money-grubber who cared very little about others. Scrooge may have been all these things, and worse! However, in the magic of Christmas, this Scrooge underwent a marvelous transformation. Touched by the spirit of God's Christmas, the long-frozen heart of that old skin-flint was finally thawed out. When his dream ordeals ended, Ebenezer Scrooge was transformed. On the outside he appeared the same. But on the inside, this Scrooge was a "new" person. As you will recall, after his dreams, Ebenezer Scrooge rushed to his bedroom window. With great joy, the "old sinner" arranged to have the largest turkey possible, sent secretly to the home of his -to that point--woefully underpaid clerk, Bob Crachit. It was utterly amazing that this Scrooge would be so thoughtful of anybody else. More amazing still was Scrooge's willingness "to foot the entire bill" for that purchase. You know how this story ends. The transformed Scrooge, vows to make amends for all the years he slighted Bob Crachit and his family. Scrooge raises Crachit's salary, and he takes Crachit's entire family, including Tiny Tim, into his care. In the words of Charles Dickens, after Scrooge's transformation, 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 his own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. HERE'S THE POINT which Charles Dickens portrays so beautifully: There is something about Christmas, which is powerful enough to warm even the most frigid heart. There is something about the birth of Christ, which can breath new life, into even the crustiest of "old fossils."
-3- Strictly speaking, Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is not religious literature. But in a wider sense, it is a vivid parable which symbolizes one of the deeper truths of our Christian faith. DOWN THROUGH THE CENTURIES humanity has been haunted by a great question. As the prophet Jeremiah once asked, "Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots?" [Jeremiah 13:32] As Nicodemus once asked Jesus, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" [John 3:4] We know that the world changes. Even over the course of a single generation customs of dress, language, music, and values can change dramatically. If you have any doubt about that, talk to any parent of teenagers. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said that "No man can step into the same river twice." In other words, like a flowing river, the world around us is always changing. Weather and the seasons change constantly. And the plant-life all around us is in a continual process of transformation. Every year at spring time, we step outdoors and experience the wonderful "re-birth" and renewal of our natural world. But now comes that age-old question. The world around us is always changing. But what about us human beings? Can we change too? Oh yes, we know that our bodies change. Over time, our hair grows gray and our faces develop wrinkles, which some people refer to euphemistically as "lines of character." Our outer appearance does change. But here's the real question. What about our inner, spiritual being? Can our inner lives change? In a spiritual sense, can we humans experience re-birth? Can we, in effect, become "new"
-4- and "rejuvenated" persons on the inside? This is a basic human concern, and it s a concern many people have particularly at this time of year, as they make New Year resolutions for themselves. For example, resolutions to be a better person, to quite smoking, to listen to their spouse more, to do more to help others, etc. Conventional wisdom usually holds that human beings do not change. As someone once said, You'd best accept the fact that you are who you are, and that's who you always will be. Many people believe that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," and that the tree always grows, "as the twig is bent." When it comes to individual character and human nature many people are deeply cynical about the possibility of change. Their cynicism resembles that of Ecclesiastes, the Old Testament prophet, who said: What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun...all is vanity and a chasing after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight.[ecclesiastes 1:9,14,15] Like those who laughed at the "new" Scrooge in Dickens' "Christmas Carol," many people discount the possibility of inner transformation. They readily assume and expect, that a Scrooge will always be just a Scrooge. I've called this view "cynical." But it's really more serious than that. For in its wake, this view always leaves great despair. Consider this: if we human beings cannot change, then what hope is there for us to live better lives? If we cannot be "rejuvenated" and transformed on the inside, then what hope is there for the alcoholic, for the couple
-5- whose marriage is "on the rocks," or for the prisoner? What hope is there for those who are enslaved to hatred, to greed, or to any of a wide number of life-diminishing addictions? If we humans cannot change, then what hope is there for countless millions of people in our world today, who really need--for whatever reason--a new chance and a fresh start in life? IT'S OFTEN ASSUMED that people cannot change, any more than leopards can change their spots. However, it's the Good News of our Christian faith, that the power of God which came into our world in Jesus Christ, is a power for new life. As the Gospel According to John put it: In him was life, and the life was the light of all people...the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world...indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [John 1:4,9; 3:17] Conventional wisdom may cynically discount the possibility of inner change. But that's not the Good News which came into our world with Jesus. For as Jesus himself declared and demonstrated, time and time again in his ministry: What is impossible for mortals, is possible for God. [Luke 18:27] As we finish our celebration of Christmas and now move into the New Year, we should take this truth of our faith to heart. The fact is that people can and often do change. They can do that, when they open their hearts and lives to the power of God in Jesus Christ. As you know, the Apostle Paul's life changed dramatically, when he discovered the love of God in Jesus Christ. In our scripture reading this morning, Paul describes to the Christians at Corinth, that great change which took place
-6- within himself. As Paul said, So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. [II Corinthians 17,18a] Throughout his ministry, Paul speaks repeatedly, and in glowing terms, of his new, transformed life "in the Spirit." And so it is with our religion. Because of God's love in Christ, Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of the fresh start. It's the religion of the new chance. Christianity is the religion of divine forgiveness and hope, which offers spiritual rebirth and renewal to all. Consider Jesus' ministry itself. The New Testament Gospels recount story after story of people, whose lives were transformed and renewed through Christ's love. For example: --there was Zacchaeus the once fraudulent tax collector who repented before Jesus and returned to his victims, four times what he had stolen from them. -there was Peter. Peter denied Jesus. But even after that terrible human failure, Jesus forgave Peter, and empowered him to be "the rock" upon Jesus built his Church. Contrary to conventional wisdom, those people changed for the better. They were lifted out of their personal prisons to new life, by the power of God's love in Christ. Karl Marx once said that Christianity is "the opiate of the masses." He meant that Christianity is like a drug that lulls people into a complacent acceptance of their dreary, uninspired lives. In fact, Marx could not have been more wrong. For the power of God in Christ does not lull. Rather, it stirs. It stirs all kinds of people who love God, to a greatness of heart and deed, which extends far beyond their imaginations.
-7- AS JESUS told his disciples, the power of God which he was preaching, was not just a double dose of the same old religious precepts. Rather, the power he was preaching was a potent new wine. It was a new wine which needed brand new wine skins to carry its freshness and its vitality. SOME SAY THAT the season of Christmas is primarily for children. But that's not true. For it seems that we adults need the Bethlehem babe, as much, if not more, than any child does. Consider this: --children still believe that the world is fresh and full of opportunities for growth and change. -children still believe in the wonder of life and the possibility that even the "impossible" might happen some day, right before their eyes. Yet, in sharp contrast to children, we adults are a "jaded" and cynical lot. For the most part, we adults have discounted such wonder, such openness, and such hope for the impossible. We have discounted such things as mere "childishness." We adults tend to doubt that people can change. And sometimes, we fall into despair, because we cannot see how our own lives, or the lives of those we love, can ever get any better. It was Jeremiah, an adult, who asked if leopards could change their spots. It was Nicodemus, an adult, who wanted to know if people could be born again. Children are very precious in God's sight. But consider this. God did not call any child to the Bethlehem manger. Rather, it was care-worn shepherds of the field and accomplished wise-men from afar, whom God summoned to see the great miracle of the birth of God's son. Yes, in a sense, it seems that the Bethlehem babe was a gift from God, meant especially for adults. For in that tender
-8- little child of Bethlehem, all of us adults are reminded of what children already know. We are reminded that with God, all things are possible. We are reminded that it is always within God's power to bring new life and new hope, into our old, old world. It is always within God's power, to rejuvenate and transform our lives on the inside. Thus, there can be every hope, for the alcoholic, for the couple with marital difficulties, for the prisoner, and for all of us--whatever our challenges -all of us who really need positive change in our lives. SOME PEOPLE laughed at the new Ebenezer Scrooge who emerged on Christmas morning. They couldn't bring themselves to believe, that a person could change so. Yet, as Charles Dickens well knew, it is fully within the power of God's love in Christ, to transform even the most "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner" into a saint. And, may God continue to transform our lives too. Let us pray, Eternal and loving God, as move from the blessed season of your son's birth, into this new year, 2012, we pray that you will open our eyes to the renewal of hope and the vitality of spirit, which are always to be found in your great love for us. If we have despaired of changing our lives for the better, if we have foundered in trying to find refreshment for our spirits, or if we have been weighed down with problems which resist our efforts at change and improvement, surprise us in this new year with the gifts of your peace, your healing, and your joy. As we pass through 2012, help us so to open our lives, that through your love, we may discover that the glorious,
-9- redeeming spirit of Christ, has been born once again in our hearts. In his name we pray. Amen. ENDNOTE 1. Quotations are from The Annotated Christmas Carol: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Illustrated by John Leech, With an introduction, Notes, and Bibliography by Michael Patrick Hearn, (New York: Avenel Books, 1989). This book contains Dickens original 1843, uncorrected printing version of A Christmas Carol in Prose.