“He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.” Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is famous for his transformation of character. His humbug personality undergoes a complete alteration thanks to the intercession of Dickens’ Christmas ghosts. Although the story exhibits slight religious undertones (the name “Ebenezer,” or salutation from Dickens, “God bless Us, Everyone!”), it undoubtedly represents a secularized model for meaningful change. God and Christianity are completely absent from Dicken’s tale.
What does it mean to experience meaningful change? The first thing is to understand “meaningful.” A subjective word as meaning can be interpreted differently from one person to the next. As far as our context, it should be sufficient to say that meaningful change is a long-lasting or even permanent change. It is not flippant or temporary but exhibited when a person goes from a lifestyle of pursuing and engaging with poor habits, negative emotions, and feelings, or harmful actions to a posture that aims to remove such attributes from their life entirely.
The most popular world opinion about meaningful change is that it is impossible. There are many subscribers to the idea that “people never change” or “it will always be this way.” This is because the most common human experience supports this claim. Meaningful change, like the one described in Dickens’ fiction, is on the plane of miracles and not to be expected in everyday life. When Bob Cratchit works for a grumpy old miser, he should either learn to deal with his employer or find another job.
Yet true, life-transforming change is possible and even common if one knows where to look. Christianity builds around the idea of meaningful change. To be a Christian requires a person to experience deep change. Theologically, change is baked into our thinking with terms like “conversion,” “born again,” “justified,” and “sanctified.” The first aspect of change occurs when a person becomes a Christian. To be justified is to completely rearrange a person’s makeup into that of Christ. It’s not just a change of clothes but a whole new identity. Sanctification, on the other hand, is more of the type of change we talk about when we think of the lifelong process of betterment. The Christian life is marked by becoming better, more holy, and more beautiful in the way that Christ is beautiful.
Meaningful change that lasts is only possible through Christ. Let us accept the notion that Scrooge was a real person and that he did experience a revelatory life transformation. The change he experienced would never be considered lasting without Christ because his original sinful nature was left untouched by his ghosts. Additionally, there is no ultimate hope for Scrooge. “His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.” Scrooge’s newfound generosity was a continuation of his self-centeredness as it merely served his own heart. His consolation was that he felt content in doing good for others, but he had no purpose and no alignment with a new identity as an image-bearer of God. True change is only possible through union with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and with the help of fellow believers. Often, it takes a very long time filled with pain, tears, struggles, conflicts, falling backward, pressing onward as well as the help of friends, ministers, and counselors. But meaningful change is not a lie; it is possible through Christ.
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