Christ is alive: to begin with. If Charles Dickens had been inspired to write a book of the New Testament, I suspect that it is how it would start—for that truth is the foundation of Christianity: “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). It is instead, of course, an alteration of the opening line of his famous tale, A Christmas Carol. This justly celebrated classic chronicles the terrifying but morally reformative experience of Ebenezer Scrooge, as unkind and callous a miser who ever stalked the earth. Successively haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, Scrooge’s eyes are opened to his own wretched selfishness, prompting repentance and a dramatic alteration of his close-fisted and hard-hearted behavior. Scrooge’s story is timeless because it is a spiritual story. His transformation echoes that of Zaccheus (Luke 19), the counterpoint to the rich young ruler whose inability to loosen his grasp on the things of this world introduces Christ’s teaching that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). When we first meet Scrooge, he is that rich man. His love of money has nearly extinguished the sparks of love and joy that sputter fitfully among the gathering shadows of his dark heart. His lamentable condition is brought into stark relief by being examined in the glow Scrooge and the Death That Gives Life Justin D. Lyons
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