THoughts from Pastor Ken Fuller
The Christmas we know we owe to Prince Albert and Charles Dickens. Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, brought the customs of his German homeland to Britain and the English speaking world. We owe Christmas trees, and carol singing to the Royal Household. Dickens’ wrote A Christmas Carol and his four Ghosts brought us to a renewed holiday centered around hearth and home, dedicated to the relief of the needy, and restored from neglect that had come from puritan and high churchmen alike. Christmas by the time of the Reformation had become an excuse for excess, gluttony, drunkenness and licentiousness. No one particularly wanted it back, so even a hundred and fifty years after the restoration of King and Bishop in England it was sadly neglected.
A new bright version of Christmas meaning shines through the book.
The new point of the season is rebirth of each soul, or reclamation as one
ghost tells Scrooge. Gooses, wassail, carolers, dances and greenery are all stage-dressing for the real drama of the season. The opening of each one’s heart to the Christ child. The one carol actually quoted was “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” and the line “God bless you merry, Gentleman, Let nothing you dismay” included in the story leads the reader to complete the verse from memory, “Remember Christ your Savior was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from Satan’s power, when we were gone astray, O tidings of Comfort and Joy!” This little bit of literary rhetoric leads us to own for ourselves the theme of Scrooge’s reclamation when he, and we, had gone astray.
This season we will be looking at the various Ghosts of Christmas during the Morning Worship. We invite you to join us as we read and meditate upon portions of this beloved book. And I trust you will make the time to reread it yourself.
CHRISTMAS GHOSTS
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
