Christmas Yet to Come: beyond gifts and giving

By Rhonda Westfall

It's interesting that the third spirit who pays Scrooge a visit on Christmas Eve never utters a word.

He doesn't need to.

The vision of Christmas Yet to Come - where no one mourns the passing of a miser who dies utterly alone - burns in the heart and mind of Dickens' main character in A Christmas Carol.

Old Ebenezer has had a life-altering experience; that's for sure.

Although he never says so, the phantom makes it clear that the future is not set in stone. Scrooge has the ability to change the images - to recreate his life - if he honors Christmas in his heart each day of every year.

The same is true for all of us - the question is, how?

What is the spirit of Christmas?

To say it's all about giving seems too simplistic, and in a way it is. Christmas goes beyond gifts that are exchanged - even those given as a symbol of the greatest gift of all time, the Christ taking a human form asleep in a manger.

This is a giving of peace that, as St. Paul says, "passeth all understanding." It’s what so many search for in so many places, but is easily found and readily accessible - if we make the choice like Scrooge to open our hearts to the Spirit of Christmas.

It's clear, perhaps, if we move back in time for a moment - so that we can look forward to what Christmas Yet to Come can mean for each of us.

From Dickens' England of the mid-1800s we travel back 300 years and across the English Channel to Germany where another prolific writer penned a Christmas hymn for his children.

Martin Luther's From Heaven Above to Earth I Come provides a good prescription for honoring Christmas each day of the year.

"Ah, Lord, who hast created all,
How weak art Thou, how poor and small,
That Thou dost choose Thine infant bed
Where humble cattle lately fed!

"For velvets soft and silken stuff
Thou hast but hay and straw so rough,
Whereon Thou, King, so rich and great,
As 'twere Thy heaven, art throned in state.

"And thus, dear Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To make this truth quite plain to me,
That all the world's wealth, honor, might,
Are naught and worthless in Thy sight.

"Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee."

May the Spirit of Christmas enter your hearts today, tomorrow and every day.