Jimbo's Jots

Recently, I had a conversation with one of our church members about favorite Christmas movies. He had mentioned A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott. He continued that he still tries to watch it each year, sometimes from his VCR tape. This particular version was a made for television movie produced in 1984. Admittedly, I had not seen this version, so I went home and watched it soon after.

There are several versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that have been produced over the years. My particular favorite was the movie produced in 1951 starring Alastar Sim. Born in Scotland in 1900, Sim did not start acting of any form until into his mid 30s. It is his play of Ebeneezer Scrooge that I believe is the best.

This particular interpretation reminds me of knowing that it’s Christmas and home. When I was growing up, the family would be together at Christmas. My oldest sister and her husband would come over. He would turn the television to WGN out of Chicago (one of the first cable stations we got) and we would watch this movie while final preparations were made on food.

The movie is a movie of second chances and being able to see the “what ifs”. Scrooge is confronted with his past and present and given the chance to what could happen if he continued to walk the path that he had chosen to live so far in his life. With the end of the year, we all usually take a bit of an inventory of our past and present. We get an opportunity to project and declare goals for the future. And we make choices accordingly.

What Dickens helps us do is to look at our own lives comparably to Scrooge’s. We, like Scrooge, need to look at how we love others and serve them. In the end, Scrooge changes his perspective and as Dickens’ writes, “He became as good a friend, as good a master and as good a man, as the good old city knew.”

Maybe there is a little bit of the old Scrooge in us and maybe a little of the new Scrooge. Either way, this story and this movie gives a great glimpse of the opportunities we are given each day. Maybe just maybe we would hear said of us, “They were as a good a friend, as good as a employee, as good as a man or woman of God as the good city has ever seen.”

Be blessed Scrooges! Be a blessing to others!!