I am one of the thousands who love A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. To be honest, I never read the book beyond the first chapter, but I’ve watched every version of the movie that has crossed my path including The Muppets’ version and my childhood favorite, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.
THE BLACK & WHITE STAGE
Knowing my passion for A Christmas Carol, my husband surprised me with a tickets for a local performance. When the play started, I wasn’t sure what to think. At first, the stage was bare. The actors doubled as props (to see actors contort themselves into a bed is extraordinary). The choice of lighting created the appearance of a black and white film. I quickly became engrossed.
A CHANGED MAN
During the scene with the Spirit of Christmas Past, some actors pulled people from the audience to participate in Fezziwig’s Ball. To my delight, I was selected! I’d say that dancing on stage with the cast was the highlight of the evening, but in A Christmas Carol, the pinnacle is always Scrooge’s experience of true redemption. My favorite line of Scrooge is when he pleads with the Spirit of Christmas Future. He explains he is a changed man and pledges, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.” He is transformed!
COLOR BATHES THE STAGE
At the end of the play Scrooge awakes. He discovers he is alive and has not missed Christmas. His previous dark heart is filled with joy. He now longs to give whereas before all he wanted to do was steal. At this point in the stage production, the stage is no longer just black and white. Color now bathes the actors as Scrooge crosses over from death to life. Scripture gives us beautiful example of this in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
HE HAS RESCUED US
I love this play because it is a great illustration of true redemption freely available to all of us. Is there anything sweeter than knowing we can come to God, through his son Jesus any time we need forgiveness? God is always ready and available to hear from us. All this is made possible through the blood of Jesus Christ. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13, 14).
Even better than Scrooge, we can experience eternal redemption. Is your life full of God’s life in eternal technicolor? Are you redeemed from the darkness?
God rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy!