FELLOW PASSENGERS

(Post by: Lilly Hobbs) Blogmas Day Twenty-One

Today is day twenty-one of Blogmas, and I must say, in a family of five, it is of upmost importance that you call all your favorite book quotes, movie lines, Scripture references, and anything else you may want to use before anyone else does.

If you don’t, rest assured it will most certainly be taken from your grasp and used by someone else!

Oh goodness, I am of course joking. Well, kind of. 😊

One of the books we only grow in love for year after year is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I must admit, this Christmas season is the first time I have committed myself to reading the book in its entirety.

I stumbled upon this brilliant dialogue between Scrooge and his nephew, Fred late one night this week while reading Dicken’s profound book…

“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

“Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.” “Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure 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 a 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.

And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Scrooge represents a lost, hurting, broken soul. A soul that, in Dicken’s words, has not kept Christmas. He cannot find the courage to celebrate anything. Fred, however, states that Christmas is a time when “men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely”. He finds such joy in Christmas and has a great deal of trouble trying to contain it.

I cannot help but read this and think Fred is witnessing to Scrooge with all that is within him.

Fred so desperately wants his old, cold-hearted uncle to realize that there is so much more to life than riches and what will only bring oneself temporary happiness.

Christmas has a way of opening shup-up hearts, doesn’t it? May I ask you a question, dear reader? Is your heart open this day?

After all, you and I are fellow passengers to the grave.

The state of our hearts this Christmas is what matters more than anything else. Charles Spurgeon once said, “Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it.”

I wonder how many Christmases Fred had invited his uncle over to join in the celebration and joy. I wonder if he ever found himself distraught over the fact that Scrooge would most likely refuse to accept the invitation, and then remembered the hope he had in Christ, the reason for Christmas, and began his trek to old Ebenezer Scrooge’s without a hint of hesitation.

My desire is to be like Fred this Christmas week. To celebrate Christmas because, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good. I want to imitate Fred and invite those whose hearts are shut-up and lost to join in this celebration with me, praying that one day they would open their heart freely to the King who came to redeem us and reign over our hearts forever.

After all, you and I are fellow passengers to the grave.

To celebrate Christmas in the presence of the evil one, amidst the evil plaguing our sin-sick world, is the greatest act of defiance we could participate in.