DEAD MAN WALKING
December 08, 2021
Prayer: Lord, You are able to reveal and heal what is dead in my heart. Thank You for loving me enough to awaken me to your compassion. May I extend Your love and mercy to those around me. Amen
Scripture: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, Eph. 2:4-8 ESV
I am an English teacher, and this time every year my 9th grade students study Charles Dickens’s classic, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the story, Dickens goes to great lengths to ensure that we all know that Jacob Marley was dead. My students think it’s an amusing way to begin the book and introduce the visitation of spirits to the protagonist of the story, Ebeneezer Scrooge. Ebeneezer Scrooge–even if you haven’t read the story (which you should) you probably have a mental image associated with that name, a name synonymous with meanness and stinginess juxtaposed with the abundance and generosity of Christmas.
It’s easy to dislike Ebeneezer Scrooge, but if you view him more closely, you will see a wounded soul. Dickens describes him in terms of coldness: he had a “frosty rime about his head,” and “he carried his own low temperature with him.” He never bothered to change the sign above his business when his partner died seven years earlier. It still says Scrooge and Marley. And he doesn’t care if people call him Scrooge or Marley. He answers to both. He has lost his identity. Sometimes my students think him greedy, but I urge them to look deeper. Greed means you want something, to acquire more. At least there’s a passion there. But that doesn’t fit Scrooge. Scrooge is cold. Frozen. Comfortless. Dead. He returns home to a dark, cold house and eats gruel. There is no enjoyment in his life. He is a dead man walking.
We fault him because he doesn’t have a compassionate heart. But how can a dead man be compassionate? It will take something supernatural to wake him up to his own wretched condition before he can extend compassion to others. The three Spirits sent to him after his visitation from Marley’s ghost gradually awaken Scrooge, the first to his own pain of past rejection, the second to his pain of regret for choices made. These prepare him for the third visitation. Until he is thawed enough from his past, he is unable to see beyond his frozen nose to the needs before him. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come reveals the outcome of circumstances that Scrooge has the power to change if he chooses. Now that his heart is thawed, he can see beyond himself to make a difference in the lives of those who are near him. By God’s grace he is given the ability to change, and he gratefully and immediately begins to generously impact those around him.
I love sharing this story with my students because on some level it touches all of us. We may not be as extreme as Scrooge, but we may be or know someone who is wounded and hiding, perhaps even frozen. God loves us enough to not leave us in that state. Great is His mercy!
Copyright Vicki Milczewsky. To connect with the author, email [email protected]
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Well done, Vicki. This was an excellent way to relate a time-tested tale to our hearts. Thank you.
Thank you for your encouragement, Karen!
Thank you for this devotion. We all have a wounded or dead part of us that can, with the Holy Spirit’s help, become our ministry focus to in turn help others who have been wounded or are dead in the same or similar way as we were.
Amen Patricia!