Matt Rawle - The Redemption of Scrooge: Connecting Christ and Culture

THE REDEMPTION OF SCROOGE

The Redemption of Scrooge

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Also by Matt Rawle

The Faith of a Mockingbird

The Salvation of Doctor Who

Hollywood Jesus

For more information, visit MattRawle.com .

The Redemption of Scrooge

Copyright 2016 by Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard, P.O. Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988 or e-mailed to .

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ISBN 978-1-5018-2307-7

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com .

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotation marked (NIV) is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com . The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Quotations from A Christmas Carol are from Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being A Ghost Story of Christmas (London: Chapman and Hall, 1847), Kindle edition.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my new baby boy, Robert Thomas Rawle

What comes to mind when you think of Christmas? Maybe its a tree decorated with ornaments, or oversized socks hanging from the mantle? Maybe youve recently come from Bible study, so you picture a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger?

One of the first things that comes to my mind when thinking about Christmas is the carols. Right around the end of November, many radio stations change their formats to offer twenty-four hours of nonstop sleigh-bell-accompanied music. Interestingly, few of these songs are new. Sure, you will find new arrangements and new artists, but many of the most popular songs of the season, such as Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World, and Silent Night, Holy Night are all about two hundred years old or older! Theres just something about Christmas carols that transcends generational divides and connects us all. Maybe these songs longevity is closely linked with all of the other elements that are so ever-present and familiar during the holiday seasonneither the Advent wreath nor Santa Claus has seen much change over the years.

Charles Dickenss classic story A Christmas Carol was originally titled A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmasa curious title to say the least. Dickenss story is not a song, though like a traditional carol, it is divided into staves, or verses, with each section offering an independent thought. There are many variations for the definition of a carol, but I particularly like the one that defines carol as an old round dance with singing. Just like a circle has no beginning and no end, the carols of our faith seem timeless. Perhaps Dickens wanted his story to be shared over and over again, year after year, like a familiar carol, in order to bring people together in joy.

A Christmas Carol, however, is not your traditional Christmas story. The story begins with Marley was dead (Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave One), a rather unconventional way to welcome the holiday season, dont you think? (I mean, what goes better with Christmas than creepy ghosts, right?) But, by the end of Ebenezer Scrooges journey, we find that Scrooge has found new life. And so, as odd as it may seem to start a Christmas story with death, by the end, it all makes perfect sense. At the beginning of the story, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is just as good as deadhis soul is as frigid as the bleak midwinter air. He goes on a difficult and frightful journey, and eventually wakes up on Christmas morning a changed man.

A Christmas Carol is a timeless story, not only because we hear about Scrooges past, present, and future, but because generations have told and retold this story in their own way. Just as a new artist interprets a two-hundred-year-old carol in a new key, A Christmas Carol has seen many adaptations through the years. From community theater stage to silent films, from Mickey Mouse to 3-D computer animated motion capture, A Christmas Carol is a tale of redemption that will be with us for a long time to come! It is a story that has embedded itself into our culture and, for many of us, has become a routine fixture in our holiday traditions. Everyone knows what is means to be called a Scrooge, and poor little Tiny Tim still has the ability to pull on our heartstrings. For over a hundred years now, A Christmas Carol has been a part of our pop culture.

What comes to mind when you hear someone refer to pop culture? Sometimes when we think of pop culture, words like cutting edge or current come to mind, but this is certainly not the case for Christmas. Most of our modern-day cultural expressions during the holiday season are rooted in traditions from hundreds of years ago, and revolve around a story two thousand years old.

Regardless if you think an example of pop culture is the latest pop Christmas song on iTunes or something more edgy like The Walking Dead, theres no denying that the popular music, books, television, movies, and media have much to say about the world in which we live. The word culture is used often, by many different people in many different ways, but in its simplest form, culture is simply an expression of how a community understands itself. God, our Creator, supplies us with the raw ingredients of humanitytalents, time, creativity, desires, ingenuityand culture is whatever we cook up. Stories, songs, recipes, traditions, art, and language are all displays of how we interpret the world and our place in it.