Laughter and Tears

“…the chuckle with which [Scrooge] paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.”

One of my family’s Christmas traditions is to watch the movie Scrooge, one of the earliest film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I have never seen a better Ebenezer Scrooge than Alistair Sim. He is absolutely loathsome in his pre-Christmas scrooginess, and thoroughly delightful in his Christmas day warmth and generosity. Playing Scrooge requires the ability to play both a heartless miser and a generous philanthropist. Yet it’s not just a matter of being able to play two radically different characters: you have to convince the audience that these two characters are really one man whose life has been forever changed.

I think I love the story of Scrooge so much because it so beautifully captures the reality of redemption. As a sinner saved by grace, I understand how book-Scrooge could chuckle until he cried, or how movie-Scrooge could say, “I don’t deserve to be so happy!” That is the wonderful experience of new birth (John 3:3), of becoming a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), of dying to sin and being made alive with Christ (Romans 6:3–11).

If we really understand it, redemption in Christ brings with it an emotional roller coaster of laughter and tears. With our burden of sin and self-reliance lifted, we can feel with Scrooge that we are as “light as a feather.” With our debt forever paid, we can feel as “giddy as a drunken man.” Finally released from slavery and despair, we shed tears, not altogether sure whether they are tears of sadness over what we were, or tears of gladness over what we are now destined to become. When we ponder what it means to be redeemed, we, like Scrooge, simply “don’t know what to do.” The reality is too wonderful, too overwhelming, and seemingly too good to be true.

But it is true, and whether the truth of it makes you laugh or cry, may you “keep Christmas” as Scrooge did: forever changed and forever grateful.