Back to: Dickens A Christmas Carol and the Bible
Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God.
1. Tiny Tim, Essence from God
What does it mean that Tiny Tim’s essence was from God? Perhaps it means that Tiny Tim’s life reflected the Spirit of God.
How could a child in hopeless poverty and illness have the strength to continue to lift his eyes toward heaven in faith in God and toward others in compassion and leave such a godly example? How could a rich, powerful man given such blessings, have no cause to raise his toward others or God? The only response to these revelations for Scrooge is repentance. And he cries out asking for an opportunity for repentance.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if preserved in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”
Remember again the Scripture, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:7-9
7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
What a grim future for Ebenezer Scrooge in spite of his wealth. What a noble future for Tiny Tim who is remembered as “the essence from God” in spite of his suffering and poverty.
Tiny Tim had very little wealth and yet the generosity to love and the ability to praise God for what little he had. It was out of the pain of his disability that Tiny Tim said, “he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”
Scrooge had money to spare, but on the coming of Christ’s Advent his only remark is “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.”
Generosity was out of Scrooge’s reach, so pleasure, fellowship and community was out of Scrooge’s grasp. Scrooge could not enjoy one dime he saved and worked because he could not be thankful, he was ruled by fear and pain instead of the grace only God can give.
One of the many ways that Tiny Tim reflected the “Essence of God” was that he was willing to be used by God.
When Scrooge considers his morality, his wealth and gold shatters like pieces of pottery, and he realizes mortal fortresses fail the test of immortality. It is when we throw away our material idols and trust to the eternal voice of God that we find redemption.
“Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left,1 your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!” Isaiah 30:20-22
Tiny Tim has a peace that Scrooge cannot know. Scrooge has no peace. In Scrooge’s vision, he dies like the Roman Emperors. He was feared during his earthly life because he had the ability to accumulate wealth. But no reverence was shown to him at death.
Scrooge is obedient to no one but his own desires and fears. And his fears and desires keep him chained to living small. God calls His children to live a large life.
Each member suffers his or her own private grief, but their interactions reflect care and compassion for the others who are similarly grieving. This is a family that gives strength and hope to each of its members. Bob, the father, has just returned from the cemetery where the family will bury Tiny Tim on Sunday. Assembling the family, Bob leads them in a pledge to keep sacred all memories of Tiny Tim and to allow the pure love of their little son and brother to protect and preserve the mutual goodwill of the family. “Spirit of Tiny Tim,” says the narrator, “thy childish essence was from God.” This scene is surely one in which someone is saying a good word—and much more—about one who is expected to die imminently, but neither Scrooge nor the unidentified dead man has any place in it.
Scene 5. Graveyard
‘Spectre,’ said Scrooge,’ something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.’
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before — though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future — into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
‘This courts,’ said Scrooge,’ through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come.’
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
‘The house is yonder,’ Scrooge exclaimed. ‘Why do you point away.’
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.
A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place.
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.
‘Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,’ said Scrooge, ‘answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only.’
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
‘Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,’ said Scrooge. ‘But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.’
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.
‘Am I that man who lay upon the bed.’ he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
‘No, Spirit. Oh no, no.’
The finger still was there.
‘Spirit.’ he cried, tight clutching at its robe,’ hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope.’
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
‘Good Spirit,’ he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it:’ Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life.’
The kind hand trembled.
2. The Holy Spirit
Romans 8:26,27. Dickens again indicates that there is a power higher than the Spirits (see Stave One, Note 52) as this Spirit “intercedes” for Scrooge, recalling how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as in Romans 8:26,27.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes[a] with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God,[b]who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit[c] intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.[d]
Dickens describes the hand as “kind”—and for the first time, gives this mysterious Spirit a human, or even heavenly, quality
‘I will honour 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. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.’
3. The Trinity of Spirits
The trinity of Spirits in Scrooge reflects the Holy Spirit (one of the Trinity) in us.
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.
4. Allusion to Genesis 32
Scrooge again recalls Jacob wrestling with a spirit from Genesis 32
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
5. Scrooges Prayer
The moment of Scrooge’s prayer is the moment of his salvation—as he held up “his hands in one last prayer,” the Phantom “shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled.”
The “tall and stately” Spirit appears to revert back to Scrooge’s bedpost.
With that bold assurance, the fallen soul of Ebenezer Scrooge has arrived at the moment when he must look into the core of his identity and face the worst. It is he whose death no one mourned, his body that the ill wishers were plundering, his departure from life that caused indifference and rejoicing, not sorrow or gratitude. Scrooge’s journey began in a state of righteous self-centeredness and ignorance and came to a bleak and ignominious end. Yet on the way he has acquired a measure of self-awareness and compassion. As it happens in dreams, both joyful and nightmarish, he awakens—alive and in his own bed; he watches as the disturbing presence disappears into a bedpost.
Interestingly, at the end of this stave or section, Scrooge is not intent on freeing himself from the ghost’s presence; rather he is eager to say what he has learned about what he must do to turn his life to a different purpose. The ghost has run out of things to say. Scrooge is the one who feels compelled to speak. He pledges:
I will honour 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.