Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Thank You Jacob Marley’s Ghost

Psalm 85:5-7

5          Will you be angry with us forever?

                        Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

6          Will you not revive us again,

                        that your people may rejoice in you?

7          Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,

                        and grant us your salvation.

   One of the most treasured stories during the Christmas season is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a miserly old man who cares only for his own welfare and not the welfare of the poor, the hungry, the cold, the fatherless. He has so much wealth that he doesn’t know what to do with it except squirrel it away. In fact, he’s such an old—well Scrooge—that he doesn’t even get self-enjoyment from his money. He lives in a huge house with the barest of furniture. His fireplace is barely alive except for a few small logs to which Scrooge himself needs to scoot up to the fireplace in order to glean any bit of warmth. Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t see the path he’s placed himself on, and it was a path of destruction.

   His former partner’s ghost, Jacob Marley, has watched the fate of his former partner from the shadows of the spirit world. This spirit world that shadows Ebenezer Scrooge is one of suffering, misery, pain, and helplessness. Jacob Marley’s ghost was granted a rare opportunity—a very rare one indeed—to intervene in Scrooge’s life so that he might be spared the eternal suffering of walking the world in misery carrying the chain of greed and suffering that he has forged in his earthly life.

   The intervention comes in the form of three specters, or ghosts, who bring Ebenezer into the shadows of his life so that he can see his past that had shaped him in his present state of life, the shadows of his present state of affairs, and finally the shadows of his future end if he maintains his current path.

   Ebenezer Scrooge had a choice. The shadows were true. He could see these things for what they were and reject them, or he could see these things for what they were, accept them, and change his ways. The choice was his along with the fate with one or the other choice.

   Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,

                        and grant us your salvation.

   God’s people had seen their past. They were experiencing suffering of their own making in the present, and they didn’t like what they saw coming in the future. The only thing they could do is to cry out Yhwh their God. They saw what God had done in the past to deliver and bring salvation to His people. He intervened to deliver them from under the oppression of Pharaoh. They saw what God had done as He intervened for His people in the wilderness journey. There were so many times that Yhwh had intervened and acted in history on behalf of His people, and now they were praying that He might intervene and act again.

   Yhwh is the God of His word. He indeed would intervene in history and act in defense of humanity once again. He did this in the manger in the Person of the Christ child. There is where God intervened in this fallen, broken world. Mary and Joseph saw this. The shepherds who were abiding in their fields that night ran to Bethlehem and saw this. Throughout the Christ child’s life, people came flocking to Jesus to see Him. They weren’t interested in His height and weight, the color of His hair and eyes, etc. They came to see Jesus. Is He really who He claimed to be? He made the deaf hear, the blind to see, the lame to walk. He healed lepers and many other people who were rejected by society. He forgave sins of people who lived immorally. He hung around with the undesirables and poor. He even raised some dead people! Yes. This Christ child was truly different

   The greatest intervention, however, was when the Christ child suffered, bled, has His back shredded, was spit upon. The greatest intervention was when the Christ child suffered and died on the cross for your sins. When the Babe born in Bethlehem cried out, “It is finished,” His intervention ministry to forgive sins was complete. Your sins are completely paid for. You owe nothing to God. Come and see!

   Three days later the Christ child rose from the grave. He conquered death, damnation, and hell that each of us deserves, and He rose from the tomb that will encase and shut each of us in as well. The death and resurrection of the Christ child is God’s intervention and action in history. He has reversed the curse and the shadows of our past. He points us to the future which is there for each and every person who will repent and follow the Christ child. Which path will you follow? God has made you a Christian. He’s taken you out of the shadows of death and brought you into the Kingdom of the Christ child.