A Third of a Ton of Christmas!
I was Ebenezer Scrooge this morning, and it felt fantastic.
Everybody knows the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol”. Even my young children know it, because one of our family traditions is to watch the Muppets version of the story every year during the run-up to Christmas. It charts the conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge from an old miser to a repentant sinner during the short space of a solitary Christmas Eve. None of us want to be Ebenezer Scrooge in a bad way, but there’s nothing quite like being Ebenezer Scrooge in a good way.
Like Zacchaeus in Luke 19, Scrooge instinctively realises that genuine conversion affects how we treat one another. He sees that there is no point in claiming that we love Jesus and want to follow him unless our claim is matched with heartfelt love towards the people he has made. The story ends with Ebenezer Scrooge rushing around London on Christmas morning to give gifts to anybody he can find who is in need.
I’m so thrilled that Queens Road Church has acted like Ebenezer Scrooge in a good way this Christmas. We’ve challenged one another to put our love for Jesus into action by donating food for the Wimbledon Foodbank so that it can be put into food parcels and given out to some of the families in Southwest London who are most in need. So far (and we are still collecting donations for two more weeks) we have collected a third of a ton of food which I drove to the Foodbank this morning in time for Christmas. Marcus Bennett, who leads the Foodbank, tells me that this makes Queens Road Church the single biggest donor to the Wimbledon Foodbank since it was started. A lot of people are going to be helped through the generosity of many.
So if you are part of Queens Road Church and have been involved in this offering, then well done. You have been like Ebenezer Scrooge in a good way.
And if you’re not part of Queens Road Church, then enjoy this Christmas season and mark it by becoming like a converted Ebenezer Scrooge too. Jesus told us that the poor would be with us wherever we live. Look for ways to meet the needs of those around you in Jesus’ name this Christmas time.
And finally, in the words of Tiny Tim Cratchit in the last line of “A Christmas Carol” - “Merry Christmas, one and all!”
