➡ Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” played a significant role in popularizing Christmas when it was not widely celebrated. The book, which was published in 1843, was well-received and sold out quickly, leading to numerous reprints. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation added a new layer of meaning to the holiday, emphasizing generosity and concern for the poor. However, the author argues that while helping the poor is important, it should not be done through government, and good works alone cannot earn eternal life, which is the true message of Christmas.
➡ The Bible, from start to finish, reveals Jesus Christ and the law and prophets also testify about him. This is the true message of Christmas, a time to remember what Christ has done for us. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge, who became generous and was remembered fondly, is a part of the Christmas narrative. However, the ultimate reward is not in earthly things like silver and gold, but in spiritual ones.

I mentioned yesterday briefly the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It was kind of interesting, the history of this. And there’s an interview on World Magazine, wng.org. They talked to Bruce Forbes. He’s a holiday historian and an author of Christmas, A Candid History. He said, you know, everybody thinks, well, this is the way they celebrated Christmas back in Victorian England. He said, actually, it wasn’t a portrait of Victorian Christmas at the time. It actually, um, Dickens actually made Christmas popular when it was not popular at the time. And he points out, going back to the 1600s, English Puritans tried to stamp out Christmas celebrations based on two main objections.

Number one, they said, well, it’s not in early Christianity, so we’re not called to do it. Number two, is there too much wild partying going on? And again, the way I look at it is, you know, some people look at one day as holier than another. Other people see every day as alike. Let everybody follow their conscience. And it depends on how you celebrate it. Is it going to be wild partying? Is it going to be rampant materialism? Or is it going to be an opportunity to reflect on the incarnation of Christ and his purpose? And so parliament even went so far as to ban Christmas in 1647.

Uh, the historian Forbes said at some points they would send town criers around on Christmas Eve crying, no Christmas, no Christmas. What would Megan Kelly say? And, uh, Bill O’Reilly, these are the people who always talk about the war on Christmas over here. A Forbes said, for a century or more, Christmas remained diminished. A survey of stories, as a matter of fact, from the London Times between 1790 and 1836 shows just how much Christmas had fallen out of favor. In 20 of those years, nothing at all is said about Christmas. And in the other 25, it’s mentioned only briefly in the kind of sense of, well, that’s something that people used to do a long time ago.

Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol in just six weeks, and he published it a few days before Christmas on December the 19th, 1843. He was up against a deadline and just barely making it like we did with this book in the bookmark, you know? Anyway, the public reaction was instant. They loved it. It sold out. They printed it over and over, reprints over and over again in the following years. And it got very big in America as well. In 1868, Dickens sailed to the U.S. to perform dramatic readings of his books, including A Christmas Carol.

I used to watch Bonanza when I was a kid. I remember they had an episode of Charles Dickens in America, and he went to the ranch, you know? He got to meet the cart rides, I guess, because he got a lot of money. Anyway, Forbes said he was like a rock star. He had 150 people waiting overnight to get tickets in Boston, and the tickets all sold out. So he said, A Christmas Carol expressed Dickens’ deep concern for the poor. And see, this is why, you know, when my friend, who is from the Libertarian Party, he got so upset about Dickens because he saw this as the wedge that was used to enact socialism, right? When in reality, you know, we need, we understand that they use children, as I’ve said before, they’re always, children always, and the welfare of children is always the poster child for whatever it is that they want to do, whether it’s setting up a digital idea on the internet or whatever it is.

And yet we do need to be concerned about the welfare of children. It’s just that we don’t need to do it through government. And we do need to be concerned about the poor, and yet we shouldn’t do it through government. And even though he wasn’t advocating helping the people out through government, he even points out, you know, that one point he said, well, don’t we have poor houses and institutions like that? And you look at how they had, the government had failed to help the poor in that. It really was an individual concern.

And I think that was a key thrust of a Christmas Carol. So the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation grabbed a hold of the public mind and added a new layer of meaning to the holiday, one which laid the groundwork for widespread Christmas celebrations, even among those who don’t believe Christ came as a baby in a manger. And that’s the other thing about it. You know, we need to understand the, you know, when you look at Dickens’ Christmas Carol, that was one thing that always kind of bothered me. You know, it’s kind of like the beginning of it’s a wonderful life and the phony angel narrative that’s there.

And, you know, how we’re going to, you know, manipulate this guy’s life in order to do various things. Still helping the poor is not something that we should despise. Nevertheless, it’s not, as Dickens puts it out there, it’s not that good works are going to win us the favor of God. There are rewards for good works in both this life and the next life, but you’re going to make sure that you make the next life. And the good works are not going to give you eternal life. That’s what Christ came for. And that’s the message, I think, should be of Christmas.

As Forbes said, generosity becomes the theme that people can embrace, whether they’re Christian or not, or whether they’re religious or not. Generosity is a beautiful thing and it’s, I think, Dickens’ Christmas Carol’s greatest contribution. It shifts what Christmas becomes. And he made it a, he made it kind of a secular orientation. You know, Jesus said, I am the way, and no one comes to the Father but my me, right? It’s a very narrow way. It’s only one person wide. You come through or by Christ, or you don’t come at all to eternal life.

And that is the message of Christmas, really. You know, some will say that, you know, we’ve seen Bloomberg say many times, they say, well, if there is a heaven, I’m going straight in because of all the good things that I’ve done. So everybody can come up with their own set of things that they think earned them salvation. God will not be impressed. You know, when we disobey him, we have rebelled against him. And that’s why we don’t realize how serious that is. And we don’t realize why we need Christ. But, you know, helping the poor, having health care for Tiny Tim, those are all great things.

But, you know, the socialists have made those things that the government does. And so today, you know, if they would come around, I would say, well, don’t we have welfare programs for those things? I don’t need to help anybody. And he would miss the personal reward of helping someone like that. You know, these are all good things. But still the only way to have that life is through the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, Dickens’ story, I also thought about the fact that he has these three ghosts in it, right, that come back. And they’re the ones that, you know, reason with Scrooge and convince him.

And I always thought, you know, that’s really very much like a twisted version of the story that Jesus gave about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. And I don’t think that’s a parable. I think that’s a real story. He uses real names, even references Abraham. He doesn’t mention the name of the rich man because of the context of the story. He realized why he doesn’t mention that. But, you know, we could just call him Scrooge, for example, right? Or say Marley. It would be Marley, not Scrooge. Because the rich man, as he is in torment, he begs Abraham and said, let me go back and warn my family about this.

You know, I don’t want my brothers to make the same mistakes that I have made. And kind of like Marley, right? Except what does Abraham say to him? He said, well, they have the law and the prophets and if they won’t listen to them, they won’t listen to somebody to come back from the dead. You know, I think about that every time I watch the show. So what would he tell them, right? What would he tell them about that? And what would they learn from the law and the prophets? Well, when Jesus was confronted with the religious leaders, he said, you search the scriptures, that is the law and the prophets, because you think in them you will find eternal life, but they testify of me.

And they do. And that is the message of Christmas as well. You know, the prophecies and the whole narrative of the Old Testament all points to Christ. It’s not about the end of the world. It’s not about Zionism. It’s not about any of that stuff and what happens to Israel, what happens at the end of the world. No, even that’s such a misreading of revelation. People will often call it revelations. And I think it’s because they think of it as revelations about the end of the world. But the actual title is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

That’s what the Bible is and start to finish. And so it testifies of him. And again, the law and the prophets testify. So, you know, Marley’s not going to go back and tell Scrooge this Scrooge has got the law and the prophets. And if he doesn’t want to see what they have to say about Christ, then, you know, that’s the real message of Christmas, Charlie Brown. So that’s that’s the reason that we celebrate it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s always any chance you have to remember what Christ has done for you. That’s right.

And to tell people, you know, I mean, what is the end of the of the Christmas story? And nobody ever kept Christmas, like Ebenezer Scrooge kept Christmas. So it’s like, is that it? Is that the story? It kind of kind of as an anti-climatic ending here, right? He still dies at some point in time, but they remembered him fondly because he was very generous with everybody. Well, no one put up more reads than Ebenezer. I hope that that you enjoy the reward of that. And that is not the ultimate thing.

We’ll be right back. Those were to look to find silver and gold. Yuck. [tr:trw].

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