“Much.”

While there have been many adaptations of Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” the 1936 version is my favorite. But the truest to Dickens’ story is the 1984 version starring George C. Scott. However, something about the black-and-white 1936 film captures me.

(FYI – Veggie Tales also had a version that I enjoyed. As I remember, Jr. Asparagus was Timmy Tim.)

Charles Dickens’s short novel was first published in 1843 and had three additional printings by the end of the following year. The story hits a nerve with our culture, maybe every culture, attested to by the fact that it has never been out of print. Dickens went on to write four other Christmas stories. In 1849, he began public readings of the “Carol,” which proved so successful that he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. Wouldn’t that be an experience to cherish, to hear Charles Dickens read/perform his wonderfully encouraging story of transformation?

But back to Marley’s expired ghostly encounter with his unexpired former partner Ebenezer Scrooge, he questions, “What do you want?” All sorts of bells are pealing outside the large but stark bed chamber, filling the room with almost visible soundwaves. All goes silent for a moment, and then the sound of a great iron door slamming shut in a dungeon. Silence again before a smokey form manifests inside the sanctity of the old man’s bed-chamber door.

Ebenezer Scrooge stood transfixed in the middle of the chamber, his house robe covering his street clothes of the day, upon his shaggy thin hair set a tasseled nightcap. Mr. Scrooge addressed the intruder.

Who are you?

Ask me who I was.

Who were you then?

In life, I was your old partner, Jacob Marley,

Well, what do you want?

“Much.”

So began the night of transformation of a worn-down super cynic miser into an energetic benefactor of joy. There is an assumption that we read into the word “much.” Scrooge, a miserly merchant with a combative realm of scarcity, responded, “Well.” This comment tells us much about Scrooge’s heart. He impatiently goes to the presumed point of Marlie’s intrusion into his privacy. It was as if Scrooge was saying, “How much of my money are you taking away?”

But that is not what Marlie is saying. Scrooge is not set in the story as a greedy person who always wants more. Scrooge is set as a miserly person who wants to possess all he can but has an even greater disgust and hatred for releasing what he has gathered. It is not the gathering of wealth that drives Scrooge but the disgrace of releasing what he has come to possess. Scrooge was a man who wanted to be in control. From his opinions given in the story on the indigent in the city, he envisions a plan to control them out of sight and sound.

So, when Scrooge asks Marlie, “What do you want?” it is a form of “What is the least I can surrender to have you leave me alone?” Marlie’s single-word response is a two-edged sword. “Much will be required of you.” And “I want to give you much more than you can imagine.”

It would be a great treat to sit down with Mr. Dickens and ask him about his motivation to write his brilliant commentary on the chasm between the haves and have-nots in the various forms of social structure in humanity both in his day and ours. A brief and even shallow mediation on whatever happened to the expectation, wonder, and joy announced by the angels to the shepherds that so marked our early childhood Christmases has been muzzled into silence to minimize the possibility of being bitten by the cost.

The joy of Christmas is not found in fulfilling any wish list or gathering loved ones. It can only be found in discovering why you were created. I do not think the joy of the “Light of the World” can be genuinely appreciated without facing the darkness of the night within us. We were created to be the “image” of a benevolent Creator who will not hold back His favor from those whose hearts are turned toward Him.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls (Christmas joy). When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45-46, CSB (Parenthesis mine.)

Photo – Christmas at Marmie’s house, a cup of chocolate milk, and a Santa hat, can life be any better?