The Christmas Carol as Christian Truth
Session Three: “Old Marley was Dead to
begin with. . .”
Word to Live By:
Romans 7:24 (KJV): “O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?”
Romans 8: 1-2 (KJV): here is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death.
Session Truth: The Wonder of Christmas: Life from Death.
Scripture: Ezekiel 37: 3 (KJV)
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried
me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in
the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
2 And caused me to pass by them round about:
and, behold, there were very many in the open valley;
and, lo, they were very dry.
3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these
bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou
knowest.
4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these
bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the LORD.
5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into
you, and ye shall live:
Introduction: What does it mean to be dead? Physically? Spiritually?
Jesus’ proclamation of his wonderful mission on Earth was two-fold:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to head the broken hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captive, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised. ((Luke 4:18 KJV)
Jesus came to both reclaim those who are lost and to help to poor:
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Like the great wonder of the Biblical Christmas story, Dickens’ Christmas story begins
with in death.
Marley was dead: to begin with . . . There is no doubt whatever about that
. . . Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail . . . This must be distinctly
understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going
to relate (1 Emphasis Mine).
The narrator of the Christmas Carol emphasizes this point overtly because the deadness
of Marley connects with his surviving partner. Scrooge was Marley’s
. . . sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent
man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. (1)
In fact Scrooge and Marley are so connected that he answers to his partner’s name:
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,
but he answered to both names. It was all the
same to him. (2)
The point? Old Scrooge is like Marley “as dead as a doornail.”
What does Scrooge’s state of death mean?
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. . .Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with
gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you?
When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and
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then would wag their tails as though they said, `No
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,
was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge. (2)
Utter isolation; Scrooge does not connect with any of his fellow beings. And while he
may not know it, Scrooge is in a state of separation from God which is, of course, the
definition of being damned. He in fact describes himself this way when his nephew asks
him to supper:
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he
did. He went the whole length of the expression,
and said that he would see him in that extremity first. (4)
The Helpless State of Human Beings: Just as humans are unable to reach God on their
own, so The Christmas Carol, shows Scrooge as incapable of escaping death himself or
being redeemable by any human effort. Scrooge functions in an illusion of selfsufficiency. He is described as not relying upon either the grace of God or the kindness of
his fellow men, as being "secret and solitary as an oyster" (Christmas Books 8). Grace is
needed for the salvation of any human, and Scrooge demonstrates this.
His nephew, Fred, even suggests this fact in his greeting:
"A Merry Christmas Uncle, God save you!" (3)
Scrooge, however, is untouched by the human expression of God's grace:
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
"Christmas a Humbug, uncle! . . You don't mean that I am sure?"
"I do." (3)
Later, the two portly men offer Scrooge the chance of opening his own heart to God's
grace by being a minister of help himself, but Scrooge, believing himself to be selfreliant, is unmoved:
"What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing."
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone!" (6)
In such a state only the touch of supernatural grace can reach such a soul, so a terrifying
grace, a hell-fire sermon, is what Scrooge gets and can not ignore with the arrival of
Marley. It is also during that visitation that he learns that his self-righteous reliance on
the law is in fact dragging him towards death.
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Is Grace always pleasant? No!
Of all the different film versions I have seen, only the one staring George C. Scott as
Scrooge and Frank Finlay as Marley has gotten it correct. Marley is not a joke; he is a
terrifying apparition of one who thought he was living a satisfactory life.
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
(Hebrews 12:6)
Jacob Marley is a hell-fire sermon: he is also the embodiment of the condemning
law which although good is also a bringer of death:
Romans 7:4-6
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body
of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised
from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5 For when we
were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in
our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered
from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve
in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
The “Jewishness” of Jacob Marley’s may represent the law of the Old Testament. Of
course Victorian England was the beginning of the rise of Jewish businessmen and so
Scrooge’s partner Jacob may have indeed been Jewish. He, like Scrooge, lived under the
mandates of the law, and, remember, that neither Scrooge nor Marley had broken any
laws. They were respectable men of business.
Still Scrooge tries to maintain his self-centered perspective, even to the point of claiming
at first that the suffering spirit is nothing more than by-product of something he, Scrooge,
ate:
"There's more of gravy that of grave about you, whatever you are!" (Christmas
Books 18).
However, Marley's terrifying scream of a spirit in agony forces Scrooge to alter his
perspective
"Mercy!" he said "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"
"Man of the worldly mind. . .do you believe in me or not?!
"I do. . .I must!" (Christmas Books 19).
So Scrooge is forced to consider realities beyond those that he can explain and control.
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Of course Scrooge attempts to defend himself before this onslaught. He notes that Marley
(and therefore also himself) had always been a good man of business. But Marley won't
let him:
"Business!. . .Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my
business, charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my
business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the
comprehensive ocean of my business!" (Christmas Books 20)
Dickens' insight that doing good could actually be one's business is supported in scripture
by Jesus' response as a boy to his parents' concerns:
"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist
ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49 KJV)
Another Christian echo connected with Christmas: the mother and child.
Stereotypically Ghosts are portrayed in torment and in chains—
Dickens takes that cliché concept and makes the torment
specifically that of no longer being able to do good, to do the
real business of a “Christian soul.” The chains are idols and
they can not help the mother and child.
There also can be no doubt that Marley is a manifestation of
grace if an unpleasant one. When Scrooge asks for comfort
Marley replies. . .
"I have none to give. . .It [comfort] comes from other
regions, Ebenezer Scrooge,
and is conveyed by other ministers to other kinds of men" (Christmas Books 1920).
Notice, however, that although he is not there to comfort, he does not deny that he is a
kind of minister of grace himself. Thus, before Scrooge can receive comfort, he must go
through the conversion process which will require him to recognize his need and his
guilt. We must come to the bottom of ourselves before God can take us anywhere.
Why not end the story here? Dickens in fact has a kind of story like this in his second
book The Pickwick Papers. “The Goblin and the Sexton”
However, while that story had set the pace for Christmas
narrative which would raise before its readers the concerns
for the poor, it does not contain the powerful narrative of
Scrooge’s own salvation. Gabriel Grugg is frightened by the
experience into better behavior but Scrooge is actually firmly
convinced.
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Only Without Any Pretense of Self-reliance Can Grace Work:
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Another Christian echo here is
Notice, here is another often unexplained Christian reference, angels were
traditionally thought to be the ministers of grace. “Angels and ministers of grace
defend us!” (Hamlet I. iv).
Thus, although he is not there to give comfort (“I have none to give. . .It [comfort]
comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers
to other kinds of men" (Christmas Books 19-20), Marley does not deny that he is
a kind of minister of grace himself.
Before Scrooge can receive comfort, he must go through the conversion process
which will require him to recognize his need and his guilt. We must come to the
bottom of ourselves before God can take us anywhere.
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