My family and I are making our yearly trek through the plethora of classic Christmas movies. It would be an exceedingly difficult task for me to choose a single movie as my “favorite.” Each of them plays a part in helping me remember an important aspect or idea of the Christmas season and challenges or encourages me. One such movie is Disney’s animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
It feels somewhat funny to claim that I find this particular Christmas movie encouraging. It is actually rather dark throughout most of the movie. As my family watched it a few days ago, my daughter confessed that she didn’t enjoy the movie when she was a child. She said it scared her, which really makes sense. The movie starts with a dead man, moves through an increasingly somber set of ghosts, and constantly hints at the imminent and contrasting deaths of a cantankerous old man (Scrooge) and a gracious young boy (Tiny Tim). The movie feels much more Halloween than Christmas, for the most part.
Rather than simply minding our own business, we should make loving and caring for people our business.
One scene in particular sets the tone for the whole of the story and speaks to my soul. Seven years have passed since the death of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s late business partner and the dead man on the table at the beginning of the movie. As Scrooge prepares for bed, Marley’s ghost comes over for a visit. Marley is in bad shape. He is bound with chains that are attached to chests full of treasure that Marley had accumulated during his life. Scrooge is perplexed at Marley’s sad state of affairs and notes that Marley had been a good man of business during his life. At this, Marley lets out a bone-chilling wail and makes the most poignant and challenging statement of the whole movie. Marley cries, “Business! Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business! The dealings of trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Marley had spent his entire life minding his own business. He, like Scrooge, had been pursuing a life of “substance.” He had been unconcerned with the lives and problems of the people around; that wasn’t his business. His business was on the accumulation of profits and possessions to better his own position. Marley was a good man of business, but he had learned a little too late that profits and possessions weren’t the true purpose of life. As his lament reveals, life is meant to be lived loving and caring for those God brings our way. Rather than simply minding our own business, we should make loving and caring for people our business.
The incarnation is a divine invasion of privacy. It is the moment when God physically came down and entered into the struggle with us.
Christmas is a reminder that God desires to be in our business and for us to be about His. The incarnation is a divine invasion of privacy. It is the moment when God physically came down and entered into the struggle with us. Rather than seeking the good life, Jesus chose to sacrifice the glory of heaven in order to struggle through life and suffer on the cross to purchase our salvation. Christmas is an invitation and a challenge to likewise live lives of sacrificial service for the good of those Christ came to save. We all have different business to which we must attend every day. We have different preferences and priorities. But, we all share the same greater purpose if we are followers of Immanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). We are to sacrificially and selflessly serve others (Matthew 20:24-28). We are to care for the least of these our brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:34-40). We need to mind our business; mankind is our business. It’s the business of the Baby in the manger and the Father who sent Him.
