Ministers’ Message
“Marley was dead, to begin with.”
As far back as I can remember, I have always been captured by the image of Marley’s chains. Dickens describes them in such an ordinary way: cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. Nothing about them is grand or theatrical. They are made of everyday things from Marley's life as he knew it, the kinds of choices a person makes without thinking. They did not appear all at once. They were formed slowly, almost quietly, through moments of indifference, small acts of self-protection, and a lifetime of forgetting what truly matters. The tragedy is not that Marley set out to become hardened, because he didn't. The tragedy is that he never noticed it happening.
I think what enthralls me to this day about Marley is how easy it is for many of us to recognize ourselves in his image. We know what it feels like to drag something behind us that we wish we could set down. Sometimes the chain feels like regret. Sometimes it feels like exhaustion or resentment that has grown heavier with time. Sometimes it is a pattern we slipped into almost without realizing it, until one day we wake up and wonder how we drifted so far from our own heart. I think we all know what it's like to wonder what we will find when we look back at our life at its end.
What moves me most, and honestly terrifies me, in this part of the story is the way Marley speaks from a place of clarity. He finally understands what his life could have been. He sees all the moments when compassion was possible. He sees the opportunities he walked past. And in response to that clarity, we see a profoundly loving act in Marley's visitation. Marley does not come to frighten Scrooge. He comes to shake him awake so he can still choose a different way. His depth of care for Scrooge's welfare is such that he longs for Scrooge to learn what he learned too late, and so Marley procures an opportunity for Scrooge to see with the same clarity and choose a new way forward.
When I look at my own life, I can certainly name seasons when I felt the weight of my own versions of those chains. Moments when stress made me less patient. Moments when fear made me smaller. Moments when I was too tired to offer the kindness I wanted to offer. None of these moments were dramatic, but they accumulated over time. They made life feel heavier than it needed to be. What helped me most in those seasons was someone who cared enough to ask how I was really doing, or a moment of unexpected grace that helped me breathe again. That is the kind of mercy Marley brings into the story. An invitation to open a door to a transformed life.
If you would like to read Marley’s visit in preparation for Sunday, you will find it in A Christmas Carol, Stave One.
As Advent begins, I think many of us long for that same possibility. We want to feel lighter. We want to live more awake to the people around us. We want to loosen the grip of old patterns and rediscover the joy of choosing compassion again. The good news at the heart of Marley’s visit is that beginning again is always possible. “You have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.” The chains we carry do not have the final word. Grace does not abandon Scrooge, and it does not abandon us.
Knowing that, what will we do? Scrooge's first response to Marley's offer is “I think I'd rather not.” I can relate to that response. Facing the choices we have made that have harmed others and working to change long-held patterns toward more virtuous ends, is some of the most difficult work we can do. So, as we enter this first week of Advent, I encourage you to spend time with Scrooge’s story. Notice the places where his reluctance mirrors your own. Notice the small cracks where light begins to slip in, because Advent is a season of preparing for the light to break through the darkness. You are invited into the same awakening that reaches Scrooge. Let the story meet you where you are, and trust that grace is already reaching toward you.