Transforming Scrooge

By Mark D. Roberts If I were to tell you that Charles Dickens wrote a story about a solitary, crotchety old man who despised both people and Christmas until some supernatural visitors came to him on Christmas Eve and taught him to have a new perspective on life, you'd probably yawn and say, "Yes, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge." But if I were to tell you I wasn't thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge at all, but rather of Gabriel Grub, you might be a bit surprised. So go ahead and be surprised, if you wish, because what I'm saying is true. In 1836, seven years before he wrote A Christmas Carol , Dickens published a short story as Chapter 29 of The Pickwick Papers. "The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton" narrates the strange experiences of Gabriel Grub, the sexton (caretaker and gravedigger) for a church in a rural village, and a literary cousin of Ebenezer Scrooge. According to Dickens, Gabriel Grub was "an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow -- a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself." He had "a deep scowl of malice and ill-humor." Sounds like Scrooge, doesn't he? One Christmas Eve Grub decided to go to the churchyard to dig a grave. As he walked through the streets of his village, he watched people making preparations for Christmas parties -- parties he wouldn't even think to attend, should he have been invited. When he saw children playing games, Grub amused himself with the thought of "measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolations besides." If his neighbors offered him a Christmas greeting, Grub returned "a short, sullen growl," not "Humbug!" but its preverbal precursor. When a young lad was singing a Christmas song in the street, Gabriel Grub cornered the boy and "rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times." As he began digging a grave, Grub cheered himself with this thought: "A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!" But then Gabriel Grub received a surprise visitor, a grinning goblin who taunted him with clever dialogue. Soon this goblin was joined by "a whole troop of goblins" who captured Grub and dragged him down into the earth. Grub found himself in a cavern with the first goblin, the "king of goblins," and his band. They proceeded to show him a series of scenes that were magically projected in the end of the cavern. The first scene was of a poor family: many children and their mother. The children rejoiced when their father joined them. But then the scene shifted to a bedroom, in which "the fairest and youngest child lay dying." "Even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, the little boy died." Yet the family had assurance that their little one was in "happy Heaven." (The similarity between this scene and that of Bob Cratchit's family in A Christmas Carol is striking.) After the magic scene was finished, the goblins beat Gabriel Grub, and then showed him another ghostly video. This sequence of viewings and beatings happened many times over, and "many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub." "He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labor, were cheerful and happy... because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace." On the other hand, Gabriel Grub "saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth, and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all." At this point he fell asleep, only to awake in the churchyard on Christmas morning. Grub "was an altered man." Yet "he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved." So Gabriel Grub disappeared from his village for ten years. When he finally returned, he was "a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man." The moral of the story, according to the narrator, was "that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at Christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be never so good." Reading the story of Gabriel Grub is like looking at the charcoal sketches of an artist getting ready to paint a masterpiece. The parallels between "The Story of the Goblins" and A Christmas Carol are obvious: a solitary, nasty old man not only refuses to celebrate Christmas, but also spurns the greetings of those who do, and even tries to hurt a boy who sings a Christmas carol. On Christmas Eve this man receives unexpected supernatural visitors who proceed to show him many scenes of life, including a moving scene of a poor, loving family whose youngest child is terribly ill. In the end the man is changed by this experience. Of course there are also many differences between "The Story of the Goblins" and A Christmas Carol. Yet one of the most striking differences is the conclusion. Whereas Gabriel Grub slunk away out of fear that the townspeople would laugh at him, Ebenezer Scrooge resolved to live a changed life. After the Ghost of Christmas Future revealed to Scrooge his own sorry death, Scrooge exclaimed: "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." And so he did. Yet in light of the tale of Gabriel Grub, who ran away from town for fear of people's laughing scorn, let's read once again the conclusion to A Christmas Carol. Scrooge had just promised to Bob Cratchit that he would raise his salary and help his struggling family. After this Dickens writes: Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. Both in "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" and in A Christmas Carol Dickens recognizes that people will laugh when a person is transformed from bad to good. Yet whereas this fear kept Gabriel Grub in bondage, Scrooge was able to transcend it. "His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him." Just as Gabriel Grub recognized that people must have happiness in their hearts, and that this helps them overcome life's difficulties, so it was with Ebenezer Scrooge. But the difference between Grub and Scrooge suggests a tantalizing question: Why did Ebenezer Scrooge change? And why did he change so thoroughly that he didn't even mind if people were to laugh at him? Transformation begins when something interrupts our ordinary experience. For at least a couple dozen years Ebenezer Scrooge had been a committed grouch, miser, and Christmas-hater. But then something interrupted his otherwise ordinary experience. In his case the interruption was supernatural: the spirit of Jacob Marley and the three spirits of Christmas past, present, and future. These spirits forced Scrooge out of his rut and propelled him along a life-changing path. I've seen this sort of thing happen time and again in life. People are going along their merry way when all of a sudden something causes them to veer off their established path. Sometimes it's an unexpected blessing: a new job, a new love, a new friend. Often, perhaps most commonly, the catalyst for change is something unwelcome, at least at first, such as cancer, marital conflict, or being laid off. Transformation comes through pain. Throughout Ebenezer Scrooge's momentous night, he frequently felt pain: the pain of having been a lonely boy, the pain of his broken engagement, the pain of suffering children, the pain of his own wasted life. This pain was essential to Scrooge's transformation in a number of ways. For one thing, it opened his frozen heart, helping him to feel things he had not felt for ages. Yet pain also caused Scrooge to desire a different life, a life filled with the joys of living. In my pastoral experience, people are rarely interested in spiritual renewal when they're happy with life. When everything's great, they're understandably happy to stay on their familiar course. But if that course leads to suffering, then they're all of a sudden interested in God. Sometimes, unfortunately, that pain-driven interest is short-lived. I think of a couple who have been irregularly involved in my church. When they first started attending years ago, it was because their marriage was on the rocks. But when God helped them find healing, they were happy to return to life apart from Christian community. Then, several years later, the husband had severe heart problems, ones that might have been fatal. Once more, he and his wife were eagerly involved in church. But when the surgery was successful and life got back to normal, this couple stopped showing up at church. I fully expect that I'll see them again when the next crisis hits. So pain alone doesn't forge lasting change in people, though it surely can help. Transformation comes through children. Scrooge is changed because he sees children in a new light, joining in their celebration and pitying their suffering. The latter was especially significant for Charles Dickens, who himself felt compassion for the plight of poor children, in part because he himself had once been in their shoes. Children do have way of thawing icy hearts. I've seen this especially in men who are trapped in their inexpressive machismo until they become fathers. All of a sudden tenderness flows from their hearts, as if by magic. Or, to cite another example, I think of how the presence of children can bring joy to senior adults in a convalescent home. Of course it doesn't always work this way. Sometimes cranky people are made even crankier by the noisy gladness of children. So there's no guarantee that exposure to children will work positive change in people. Transformation is a result of seeing with a fresh perspective. Part of what altered Gabriel Grub was the beating he took from the goblins. They literally knocked some sense into him. Scrooge, on the contrary, experiences no physical pummeling from the spirits who visit him. They work their wonders simply by showing Scrooge scenes of Christmas past, present, and future. This enables Scrooge to see life from a fresh perspective, and as a result he resolves to become a changed man. Part of what Scrooge saw wasn't new. In fact, it was his own past. Yet he was seeing from the perspective of an outsider, and this altered his vision. Part of what Scrooge saw was new to him. For example, prior to his travels with the Ghost of Christmas Present he had never observed the Cratchit family's Christmas celebrations, so joyful even though so humble. It seems clear that Dickens believed in the transforming power of a fresh perspective. He wrote A Christmas Carol not only because he needed additional income, but also and especially because he wanted people to experience the joy of Christmas, and especially the joy that comes from generosity, both in giving and in receiving. Dickens hoped that his little book would function in the lives of his readers much as the spirits functioned in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge. There is ample evidence that his hopes have been fulfilled thousands if not millions of times over since 1843. I've also witnessed the power of a fresh perspective to change lives. For example, in the past few years several hundred people from my church have gone to a small community in northern Mexico called El Niño in order to assist the poor who live there. When they return, they often see life differently and act differently too. They see in a new way, for example, how richly blessed they are financially, and resolve to give much more away to those who are not so blessed. Transformation requires supernatural help. There's no question that Ebenezer Scrooge needed supernatural assistance in order to change his ways. Apart from Jacob Marley's intervention, Scrooge would have continued to forge for himself a hellishly-long chain which he'd be forced to drag about for eternity. Yet because the spirit of his former partner interrupted Scrooge and sent the three Christmas spirits, Scrooge's life is renewed. I'm not enough of an expert on Dickens to know whether he would agree with the claim that transformation requires supernatural help. Though he was a theist of sorts, Dickens didn't share many of my Christian convictions. He may have believed that literature, unaided by spirits of any kind, was powerful enough to effect change in the Ebenezer Scrooges of this world. Nevertheless, I believe that profound, lasting human transformation does indeed require supernatural assistance, namely that of the Holy Spirit. The good news for those of us who are in need of transformation, and to some extent that means all of us, is that God's Spirit is in the renewal and reformation business. According to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit "gives life," offers "renewal," and leads us into "new life" (2 Cor. 3:6; Titus 3:5; Rom. 7:6). The Spirit draws us to confess Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3), and then empowers us to live in a whole new way (Rom. 8). The Spirit of God also helps us to see with fresh perspective, opening our minds and touching our hearts. And, unlike the spirits in A Christmas Carol , this Spirit doesn't disappear at the stroke of midnight. Though I'm quite sure it wasn't Dickens's intended purpose, my reading of A Christmas Carol produces in me an enhanced desire and a more fervent resolve to live this life less by my own strength and more by the power of God's Spirit. In this way, my own "Scroogishness" might be transformed, by God's grace. See a video interview of Dr. Roberts here and here. Mark D. Roberts, as Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge, is an advisor and frequent contributor to TheHighCalling.org. A Presbyterian pastor, Mark earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Harvard University. He has written six books, including No Holds Barred: Wrestling with God in Prayer (WaterBrook, 2005). He blogs daily at www.markdroberts.com , and the meditations he writes for The High Calling will be featured at the Evangelical Portal every Thursday.