Advent Devotional by Jerry Hill

1 Thessalonians 1:2-10

You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7)

When I was in first grade, my parents purchased our first record player. Along with that purchase, Mom went to the dime store and bought a long play record of Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” with Sir Lawrence Olivier in the role of Scrooge. That year, after the Christmas tree was decorated, we gathered around the tree and listened to Dickens’s tale of Scrooge, Marley, and the three Spirits of Christmas: Past, Present, and Future. From that time on, that story of redemption became an integral part of our holidays. Almost every night between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that record would play as we gathered around the tree. It became such a part of our tradition that all of my siblings have copies of that record, and most of us have a second Christmas tree in our home, which is just referred to as the Dickens’s tree, filled with ornaments of the characters from the story. Many of us can recite large portions of the story from memory.

What a story of redemption it is!  As Scrooge examines his life, he comes to realize his many failures and shortcomings. Eventually, he finds himself at his own tombstone, and as he falls to the ground, he cries out, “Please tell me it is not too late. Tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone.”

Perhaps Christ came at Christmas to answer those very questions. To tell us that it is not too late. To help us sponge away the mistakes and failures of our past. In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, he tells the faithful that they have become imitators of the Lord. That they have become models to all believers. What an accolade!

Dickens’s story ends with the narrator stating that Scrooge “knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!” 

May we, this Advent season, strive to become “imitators of the Lord.” May we accept this greatest Christmas gift: the knowledge that it is not too late. The knowledge of the child of the manager can sponge away our shame and our guilt. That transformation is always possible.

Jerry Hill