Stave One

SCROOGE'S HEART OF COLD

Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Ebenezer Scrooge is not a nice man. Call him what you want: grouch, party pooper, old grump, stinker, killjoy, jerk. He is not just having a bad day — he is having a bad life. And he seems to do his very best to make everyone around him as miserable as possible, too. Scrooge would do well to listen to Mom's advice that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Scrooge with his icy demeanor freezes the warmth out of any situation, even a joyous holiday celebration. He has something close to an evil superpower.

Here in the first description of the main character of our story, we don't learn the full extent of his miserly, greedy ways. We don't learn about his lack of interpersonal skills or the fact that he despises Christmas. Instead, we learn that he is a cold, hard man who would like nothing more than to be left alone. How cold is he? He is so cold that he acts as his own personal air conditioner in the summer and Deepfreeze in the winter. Scrooge is so stuck in his arctic ways that it seems the only way this frigid man will experience a thaw is with help from others. (We'll get to that later.)

But as the oyster he is, ol' Ebenezer won't let anyone close enough even to try to help him. In fact, Scrooge thinks he is fine just the way he is, so why would he need help from anyone, anyway?

Most people are easy to love, and those are the folks we choose to be around every day. But Jesus calls us to love the Ebenezer Scrooges in our lives. Showing love to these unlovable stinkers doesn't always feel nice, but Jesus is very clear in what He tells us in Luke 6:32–33, 35 (NLV):

"If you love those who love you, what pay can you expect from that? Sinners also love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what pay can you expect from that? Sinners also do good to those who do good to them. ... But love those who hate you. Do good to them. Let them use your things and do not expect something back. Your reward will be much. You will be the children of the Most High. He is kind to those who are not thankful and to those who are full of sin."

Why does Jesus teach us to love our Scrooges? Because He loves us despite the fact that we are stinkers, too. We don't deserve the gift of God's Son coming to earth as a baby that night in Bethlehem. We don't deserve Jesus' sacrifice of allowing Himself to be killed on the cross in our place. We do not deserve God's love and forgiveness and gift of salvation. We don't deserve any of it, but we are immeasurably thankful for it.

Who are the Scrooges in your life? Ask God to open your heart to ways to love these people. Keep your eyes and ears open to opportunities to share Jesus' love in practical ways.

My children, let us not love with words or in talk only. Let us love by what we do and in truth. 1 JOHN 3:18 NLV

TOO BUSY FOR CHRISTMAS

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already — it had not been light all day — and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

Scrooge is a busy man. Busy getting on with his cold, hard, solitary life. He is an exceptional worker — has been his whole life — and silly things like Christmas are nothing but a distraction from getting on with the importance of his work.

Christmas Eve is the same as any other day to Ebenezer, and the dank, dark London winter is no cause for a festive mood. If anything, the weather affirms Scrooge's state of mind. So he continues counting his money, tallying the profits in an accounting ledger with a tiny stub of a pencil as wispy fingers of fog creep through the keyhole of his office door. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters but the task in front of him.

It's easy to pity Scrooge in this scene. Although we don't read any description of holiday festivities or merrymaking, we do know that it's Christmas...