Humbug To Humble
Christmas is full of tradition, but we all know that tradition’s change with time. They change as the family changes, either with a loss or as kids grow up and start families of their own. One tradition that I love is the stockings that Eric’s grandmother made for him and all three of our boys. They are beautiful handmade stockings that allow my mind to drift to memories of Christmas’ spent with her before she got to start celebrating Christmas with Jesus himself.
Another tradition I will forever treasure is our family Christmas cards. Every year we take family photos and turn them into a movie or recognizable trend. The Bivens Christmas cards have looked like the Home Alone movie poster, the “triple-dog dare” flagpole scene of A Christmas Story, Wayne’s World, “Christmas time, excellent” and more. My husband always finds a clever way to make them unique to us. Now that we have so many, I make a garland out of them to hang up each year. I love the memories it brings.
Speaking of movies, one of my favorite traditions are Christmas movies! From Miracle on 34th Street to Christmas Vacation – I love them all. One in particular has pulled me in a bit deeper this year – A Christmas Carol. You know it, right? It stars good o’ Ebenezer Scrooge.
A Christmas Carol is about a spiteful and selfish old man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who really dislikes Christmas. One cold Christmas Eve, Scrooge is unkind to the man who works for him, Bob Cratchit. He then refuses to give to charity, and then is rude to his nephew when he invites him to spend Christmas with him.
If you’ll also recall, his former co-worker visits him as a ghost to show him all the ways he lived his life – bitter and selfish - turns out to be chains he carried to wander the earth. Jacob Marley tells Ebenezer that he will be visited by three spirits – the spirit of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas yet to come.
Now before we get all excited and start ripping the wrapping from the gift of this classic Christmas tale, let’s go to the Word. Even though the name Ebenezer is known from a Christmas movie, the name is derived from scripture. We’re going to focus on 1 Samuel 7:12.
Afterward, Samuel took a stone and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”.
The word Ebenezer is a Hebrew word meaning “stone of help.” Samuel set up the stone as a remembrance of how far God had brought them. He had brought them through victory over the Philistines. This is significant because they had already lost to the Philistines before in 1 Samuel 4. This time though, the Israelites had turned their hearts toward the Lord and had removed all the idols – you know, those idols like Netflix, Amazon, and phones – haha. Okay, for real, their idols were gods to them. It was their idols that they depended on rather than trusting in God, which led to defeat, but when they trusted in God, victory came.
Samuel knew there would be more valleys and victories to journey through, so he could say, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” Knowing God’s faithfulness in the past and present would be an encouragement for the future.
Like Ebenezer Scrooge though, we can allow life to make us grouchy forgetting the goodness of God – forgetting how He has always shown Himself faithful.
Mr. Scrooge had the help of those three spirits’ I mentioned earlier to turn his mindset of Christmas from misery to merry, from humbug to humble. They help him find his ebenezer moments.
Christmas Past helped him remember how he once loved very deeply yet allowed money and self to become his one true love. Christmas Present helps him see that he held the power to help those in need. By the time Christmas Yet to Come enters the story, Ebenezer is ready to change and exclaims – setting down his own ebenezer in a declaration of words.
“I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”
I love that he proclaims to be aware of the lessons that our past, present, and our future can teach us.
Now, the three spirits of Christmas may never come to visit us through the night, but if we’ve given our hearts to Jesus, believing that He died on a cross to forgive us of our sins then we have the power of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost living on the inside of us. This three-in-one deity can awaken our minds and hearts to our own Ebenezer moments, recalling times when you know without a doubt that God has stepped in. Remembering those times are what gets us through the next trial and the next.
Take time to remember your Ebenezers this Christmas season. Don’t let changes in tradition make you a Scrooge. Rather, cherish the past, present and future.
Let’s be people who celebrate God’s work in our lives. The generation that came out of Egypt forgot all God had done for them, and we should not follow in their footsteps. We must remember. Set down your Ebenezer stone and declare with joy how far God has brought you.