The Spirit of Christmas Present
Read Hosea chapter 4
"There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land...My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you.”
Ignorance is a lack of knowledge or understanding. Ignorant people are either unaware or uninformed. And yet, it's not always for a lack of knowing, but for a lack of wanting to know.
Sometimes we are ignorant because we did not know there was a need to learn something. Other times, we are ignorant because we have chosen NOT to learn something we need to know.
Willfully rejecting knowledge that God wants us to have is sinful ignorance. And therefore, this sin of ignorance is dangerous because it breeds wanton ignorance. Intentional ignorance about spiritual matters can lead to eternal destruction as the book of Romans informs us in chapter 1,
Romans 1:18-21
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened."
Ignorance about what the devil is up to and ignorance about the damage done by our unforgiveness, and lack of compassion is dangerous to our spiritual health, for truly we are doing battle against spiritual evil beings. But that said, mankind is evil in all his own ways, not because the devil or God made him do it. They already intend to do evil when God uses them to bring wrath and correction, or when Satan uses them to cause the righteous to stumble.
Mankind doesn't need any help to be ignorant and wicked.
At the end of the nighttime journey with the Spirit of Christmas present; Scrooge is made to witness from under the great green robe of the Spirit, two children — two ragged, malnourished children.
Scrooge asks:
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
The Spirit answers:
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers."
"This boy is Ignorance."
"This girl is Want."
"Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
"Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city.
"Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes and make it worse. And bide the end!"
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The lesson to be learned by this visitation is to love, show mercy and be thankful now. Not later, now. Don't wait, don't be found wanting. What is lacking in our world is love and mercy, now. There is a great ignorance of this fact of life, and it is revealed by the great wealth and power that is gathered to themselves by so many, and the great want that is produced by it. And even more wicked is the fact that many call wickedness good and ridicule goodness with their ignorant words.
It is not true that we can affirm with certainty that we were once enemies of God desiring to do bad things. We still are in so many ways ignorant of our recent alienation from the reality of our own evils. There is a great lack of knowledge and a great abundance of want. Ignorance does that.
Colossians 1:21
“And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled”
We can always do better, because we are always capable of doing worse. This is why the Spirit of Christmas Present is so important for us today, because today is what is important. Today is the day of our redemption, tomorrow is not promised. Today is the day to embrace salvation and embark on a transformative journey. It is a call to seize the present moment and not delay in making the decision to follow Jesus into his righteousness. Grace should never be delayed. There is no good reason for delay.
For those who confess and believe in Jesus Christ the alienation is removed, and the hostility is gone…the relationship is restored. And NOW the real work begins. The work of being "in Him", today and every day.
Jesus promised those who love God, and who follow Him, an abundant life. Some say the promise is a prophecy about the future. I say it is about the now, but probably not what many believe it to be. He promised us an abundance of things to be done for his righteous glory.
What the Ghost of Christmas present shows Scrooge is what's going on all around Scrooge every day, in the “now”, but Scrooge hasn’t been able to see it or wasn't willing to see it. The Spirit of Christmas Present is showing Scrooge all the abundance and plenty that God has granted by grace for all humanity, but the Ghost’s focus is on the abundant need for a spirit of love, good will and compassion. He shows him that there is a great and abundant want.
Our sin is our ignorance about all this abundance. Our ignorance to our sin causes us to be afraid that we don’t have enough, even while we close our eyes to God’s abundance. We think we don’t have enough, we buy more food than we need, more clothing than we need, bigger homes than we need, more stuff than we could possibly ever need. That food is the food of the hungry. Those clothes are the clothes of the naked. Our bigger homes are the homes of the homeless. All this abundance hoarded and locked away, kept away from the least among us.
Every bit of abundance God has, God shares freely with us. And what do we do with it? God is Abundance and Plenty. God isn’t storing up goodness, he's not maintaining an abundance of it by refusing to share it. God is good because he shares his goodness. And he expects the same from us.
The lesson to be learned from all of this is we gain the abundant life promised, everyone’s lives can be improved, if we all help one another. Both classes gain from working together, rich and poor. And likewise, to embrace ignorance is to increase want. To ignore the problem is to create the problem. As want increases, crime increases, security then decreases, and fear increases. As a consequence, society withdraws from compassion and takes into itself whatever it can and hoards it behind locked doors. Ignorance creates want, want creates more ignorance. Many of us support both without intending to do so.
Our small, good deeds and misdeeds, small that they may be, when multiplied by our neighbors likewise actions, can destroy or build up a community. If we all become gluttons, then the trouble begins. Just watch how quickly society devolves during a time of great crisis. But that same devolution occurs every day in everyone's little sins against one another.
Every person of goodwill, Christian or not, must fight any social system that forces ignorance and want onto humanity. Such as communism. We cannot force knowledge and love from a culture, but we can do battle against ignorance which promotes want. Nobody, no matter your class or station, survives a combination of ignorance and want. This is the lesson learned from the advent of socialism and communism. But capitalism combined with greed and a lack of compassion can likewise create this ignorance/want paradigm. This is the lesson of Scrooge.
The Christian is equipped to do battle against the bondage of uncompassionate flesh that breeds ignorance. The weapons against ignorance and want are described in the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew 25:34-36
"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’"
Those are your weapons. They are meant to be used NOW. You have been given an abundance of them to use. You have no excuse. You are responsible for either ending or creating want. And it doesn't take much.
Matthew 25:40
"And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’"
No matter how small the effort, any move forward against ignorance is a seed sown into the abundance of his harvest. Whatever you did for the least you did it for him, and he will abundantly multiply it. Just leave that to Him for now. You just do what you can do for now. And that'll be more than enough.
"There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can with the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly you're not there anymore."
- The Ghost of Christmas Present - Scrooge 1970
God bless you and keep you in Him, now and every day.