Be the ‘new Scrooge’ this Christmas, or be like those who really influenced his transformation
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At an interfaith dinner Friday night, Elder Gerrit W. Gong shared more of his thoughts about “the new Scrooge” he talked about during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional earlier this month.
Elder Gong gave his permission to share those thoughts here with you as you prepare for Christmas this week.
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During the devotional, Elder Gong donned a red scarf and black top hat and asked viewers to imagine him for a moment as Ebenezer Scrooge. At the dinner, he asked interfaith leaders and members of the media what they think of when they hear Scrooge’s name.
The audience shared answers readily — Grouchy. Miserly. Mean. Lonely. Elder Gong asked for one more description, and it was different: Redeemed.
“That’s the new Scrooge,” he said.
“Why don’t we remember that Mr. Scrooge?” Elder Gong said in the devotional. “Are there those around us, perhaps we ourselves, who could be a different person, if only we would stop typecasting or stereotyping them as their old self? No person and no family is perfect. We each have foibles and faults, things we wish to do better.”
This reminded me of my first mission companion, who was years older than most of those in the Germany Frankfurt Mission in 1986. After our first two months together, we learned my trainer would be transferred. He had trained me patiently and kindly. Naturally, I was attached to him and nervous about the change.
I tried to grill him about my next companion, but he declined. It became a life lesson. He told me he never wanted to saddle anyone with their past. If my new companion wanted to make his transfer a space to change in any way, my trainer didn’t want to give me expectations about him that might shrink that space.
“This Christmas,” Elder Gong said, “perhaps we can receive and offer Jesus Christ’s precious gifts of change and repentance, of forgiving and forgetting, of giving those gifts to each other and ourselves. Let us make peace with the past year. Let go of the emotional angst and noise, the frictions and annoyances that clutter our lives. May we grant each other our new possibilities, instead of fixating on our past limitations. Let’s give the new Scrooge in each of us a chance to change.”
At the dinner on Friday night, Elder Gong asked the audience what words they associate with Bob Cratchit. The answers were: Family. Humble. Honest. Hardworking. Full of love.
“This is what the Cratchits do and represent,” Elder Gong said.
“Here’s my thought for tonight,” he added. “We normally attribute the change in Ebenezer Scrooge to the ghosts or the spirits of Christmas past, present and the future, but let me offer the thought, which is a tribute to all who try our very best each day, that one of the key changes for Ebenezer Scrooge was his daily opportunity to live and work with a man like Bob Cratchit, that it’s not only the spirits who change Scrooge. It was also the goodness of a man that he was near and his family.”
What Scrooge saw in Bob Cratchit every day at work, and what he saw with the spirit in the Cratchit home, gave Scrooge both a Christlike example of who he could be and the space to become a new man.
“When Ebenezer Scrooge looks in on the Cratchit family, his heart is touched because Mrs. Cratchit tells the truth about how hard life is, and Bob Cratchit can’t say a bad word, a mean word, even about his tight-fisted employer. That’s the spirit of the season,” Elder Gong said.
“Combined with the spirits, that changed Ebenezer Scrooge,” he told the interfaith audience.
“May we remember the new Scrooge, but may we remember also Bob Cratchit, and may we each be like the Cratchits, and may we salute you for what you do as the Cratchits do — humble, meek, loving, kind, inclusive, faithful, always thinking of others, never saying a bad word. That’s the spirit of this group; it’s why we salute you, for all you are and all you do.”
Ebenezer Scrooge found peace and healing in his past, present and future. Each of us can, too, through Jesus Christ, Elder Gong said.
“Our Savior came at Christmas to liberate the captives, and not only those in prison,” he said. “He can free us from the ghosts of our pasts, unshackle us from the regrets of our and others’ sins. He can redeem us from our self-centered selves through rebirth in him. For unto us — for unto you — for unto each of us — is born this day a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
“So Merry Christmas,” he finished. “May your Christmas traditions and memories be merry and bright.”
If you haven’t watched this year’s annual First Presidency Christmas Devotional, with a special message from President Russell M. Nelson, watch it here.
Read this year’s First Presidency Christmas message here.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. God bless us, every one.
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Find all the times, channels and links to watch the broadcast special of the choir’s 2022 Christmas concert here.
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Behind the scenes
