Haunted | The Ghosts of Christmas | Trinity Sermons

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.

When you think about Christmas, what memories come to mind?

Sweet memories of laughter, carols, and cookies?

Or sour memories of loneliness, family fights, and disappointment?

We have a whole lot of memories wrapped up in the Christmas season, and that's true

for Ebenezer Scrooge as well.

So join us this week as we look at Scrooge's encounter with the ghost of Christmas past

and what it shows us about our own memories.

Today's reading is from Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 to 25.

Matthew 1:18–25

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about.

His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together,

she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose

her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and

said,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what

is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will

save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which

means God with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary

home as his wife.

But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the

name Jesus.

The word of the Lord.

Well a few years ago when I was serving at another church, I got a very strange phone

call.

A young lady phoned and she had a problem.

The problem she had was that her house was haunted, and she told me that not only was

there an eerie feeling in her house, but there was noises.

Things would go bang in the middle of the night.

She would hear footsteps in the hallway at night and doors slamming.

But the real tipping point came when something grabbed a hold of her foot in the middle of

the night, she said.

And I was like, I don't know anything about this.

But we assembled a crack squad of parishioners from our church, and we said we're going to

try to help this young lady.

So we went over to her house, and even as we got to her house, it was a duplex, we met

the neighbor first actually, and the neighbor was like, oh yeah, this house is haunted.

This house has been haunted for years.

And then the owner, the one who called, took us inside and showed us all the different

rooms where all the different things had kind of taken place.

And so then we said, OK, I guess this is where we go to work.

And going to work for us meant we were going to pray.

And so basically, we started outside the house and we walked around the whole perimeter of

the house, just praying.

And then we went inside the house and we went through room by room by room, praying in each

room.

And we prayed in each room that the power of evil would be forced out, pushed out of

this place, and that the power of Jesus would hold sway and be fully welcomed into that

house.

And then we left.

And a couple of weeks later, she called back and she said, I've got great news.

It worked, she said.

No more noises.

No more banging.

No more footsteps and no more nighttime visitations.

That's a true story.

And I've never had another experience like that before.

But what I can tell you, guys, if there's something strange in your neighborhood, who

are you going to call?

If something weird and it don't look good, who are you going to call?

Ghostbusters.

No, this Advent and Christmas, though, we're looking at the real ghost story, the most

famous ghost story of all, and that is the story of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

One Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited not by one, but by four ghosts.

And there was plenty of clunking and clanging and door slamming.

And yes, there was even a visitor that appeared at the foot of Scrooge's bed.

And that voting machine announced everybody I did business with and he

Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?

I am.

Who and what are you?

I am the ghost of Christmas past.

Long past?

No, your past.

Now, most of us have never seen a ghost and I'm not even here to talk about whether ghosts

exist or any of that stuff.

But what I do want to say is that all of us are haunted.

All of us are haunted.

We're not haunted by literal ghosts, but we are haunted by memories.

And actually ghosts and memories are a lot alike, right?

For memories and ghosts, it's always something from the past, right?

Usually something from years ago that refuses to move on.

All of us have got some memories that are haunting you from your past and it could have

been decades ago, but they're still lingering, still haunting you.

Secondly, both ghosts and memories haunt us in a way that it seems to pay wants us to

pay attention to something that's unresolved in our life.

Some old hurt that we never dealt with.

And some of you may be here this morning, you're haunted by memories of some unfinished

business in your life that you never properly attended to.

And thirdly, memories and ghosts are a lot alike because both of them cannot be ignored.

You got to do something about these memories that flood back.

They literally grab a hold of you, like grabbing a hold of your foot in the middle of the night

and they will not leave you alone until you face them.

In fact, the ghosts of Christmas past did exactly that to Scrooge.

In the book, we're told that he grabbed a hold of Scrooge and forced him to address

some of the painful and happy memories that he had in his own past.

Now I want to say that Charles Dickens himself, who wrote this book, wrote this little novel,

himself, he had many painful and happy memories that haunted him throughout his life.

For example, there was the pain of his childhood.

When Dickens was 12, his father sent him away to, or his father got sent away to prison

and Charles Dickens had to work in like a sweatshop, you know, filling little bottles

with shoe polish.

And it was a humiliating way of life for him.

He never wanted to talk about it, but when he did, he said, the factory was crazy.

It was a tumbled down old house.

No words can express the secret agony of my soul.

It's a secret I've tried to keep my whole life.

He said, these are, these are memories that haunted him forever.

But he also had happy memories, happy memories.

There were times when he remembered Christmas is filled with singing and storytelling and

feasting and games.

He once wrote, happy, happy Christmas that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood

days.

Yeah, we're all haunted by memories from our past.

Some good, some bad, some happy and some sad.

And there is something about Christmas.

I think you would agree.

Christmas that brings back all those memories in a major way, in an intense way, whether

those are warm memories of family traditions or whether those are sad memories of loved

ones that we have lost.

And Advent is actually the perfect time to talk about memories because Advent actually

plays with our sense of time.

In Advent, we stand here in the present and we look to the past and remember this, this

great event that happened with Jesus Christ being born.

But we also look to the future in the hopes that the word, his kingdom will fully come

one day.

And yet in the present we're called as the hymn says to allow Christ to be born in us

today.

Advent is all about the past and the present and the future all coming together.

This is the perfect time for us to deal with things like memories.

In fact, the ghost of Christmas past himself is like a fusion of past, present and future.

We're told that he's a strange looking figure.

He's like a child.

Okay, so he's young.

No, he's actually not young.

He's more like an old man.

Oh, oh, so he's old.

No, no, he's got white hair.

So yes, he's old, but we're also told he's got the face like a baby.

And so he's young.

So what is he?

What's going on here?

What's going on is the past and the present and the future all kind of coming together.

In this Advent, we're going to look at the present and we're going to look at the future.

But today we've got to talk about those ghosts, those memories that haunt us from the past.

You probably got some notes on your way in here.

I invite you to follow along and see how much we can learn as we look back at the memories

that haunt us.

And the first memories we need to look at are what I want to call hurtful memories,

hurtful memories.

Unfortunately, for too many of us here, we know what it is like to be haunted by hurtful

memories.

Scrooge knew it too.

When the Ghost of Christmas Past started showing him some of his hurtful memories, he says,

oh, why do you delight in torturing me?

And there are some memories we carry around with us that are torturous to revisit over

and over again.

Like for example, one type of memory that hurts us over and over again are those memories

that we have of abandonment.

Nothing hurts more than being left out, left behind, and excluded.

And actually Scrooge knew this painful memory all too well.

There's my old school.

How lonely and deserted it looks.

Not quite deserted.

A solitary boy, yourself Ebenezer, forgotten by his friends, is left there still.

I knew.

As we end up finding out, Scrooge wasn't just abandoned by his classmates, but he's also

abandoned by his father.

His father refuses to let Ebenezer Scrooge return home for Christmas.

Now the worst part of abandonment is that when you get rejected enough times, it hurts

so much that you actually start to believe that you're unworthy of companionship, that

you're unworthy of relationship.

And that is actually why I think later on in Scrooge's life he's so emotionally detached

and cold because it's a defense mechanism for him.

He didn't want to get hurt like this again.

All his friends went home for Christmas and he was left behind.

All his family went home every Christmas, but he gets left behind.

I don't know.

Are any of you here today haunted by memories of abandonment of some sort?

Maybe as a kid you were bullied in school.

Maybe your father didn't care for you either.

Or maybe you were excluded by friends or classmates or whatever.

That kind of ghost, I just want to say, can haunt you your whole life long.

Now the good news is, if there is any good news, is that Jesus understands this perfectly.

Jesus was despised.

Jesus was rejected.

He knew what it was like to be abandoned by friends and even on the cross he knew how

it felt to be abandoned by his father.

My God, why do you forsake me?

So if you're struggling with memories of abandonment, you're not alone.

You're not alone.

But there's another hurtful memory that can haunt us and that's the memory of heartbreak.

If you've ever had a broken heart, if you've ever had a relationship that failed on you,

then you know what I'm talking about.

How that memory can keep haunting you and hurting you over and over again.

And Scrooge knew it too.

Then you no longer love me?

You no longer love me.

When have I ever said that?

In words, never.

Well, in what then?

In the way you have changed.

But how have I changed towards you?

By changing towards the world.

Is it such a terrible thing for a man to struggle to be something better than he is?

Another idol has replaced me in your heart.

You know, Scrooge, this was such a pivotal moment in his life because when this heartbreak

kind of happened in his life, that was the moment he turned to the pursuit of a life

of wealth and materialism.

And again, chose that over love and connection.

And it's again, it's no surprise, therefore, that later in life, Scrooge is so emotionally

detached, avoiding relationships, protecting himself from further heartbreak.

Now again, I want to say some of us here today, some of us watching online, you are still

haunted by memories of broken relationships, failed relationships, heartbreak, lost love.

You still feel that pain.

It haunts you.

You still feel that regret.

And maybe like Scrooge, you try to numb that pain by getting busy or distracting yourself

or going to work extra hard.

But that ghost lingers.

It still hangs around.

And again, I want to say to you, Jesus was well acquainted with what it felt like to

be to be unloved.

You know, he came to this world, this world that he loved, and the world rejected him.

He came to the people that he loved, and they didn't care about him.

They didn't love him back.

Jesus knew all about heartbreak.

But finally, there's another hurtful memory we need to look at.

And that is this memory of loss.

And this is a big one, right?

When death separates us from the people that we love most.

That is a painful memory that just never goes away.

Promise you what, then?

I'll promise you anything, dearest.

Only that there isn't going to be any need.

You're going to get well again, then.

No.

You are.

You are.

Dear God, you must.

And you can't die.

You mustn't die.

You're going to get well again, then.

Then you're going to get well again.

Ms. Scrooge's sister is one of the few people who actually loved him in life.

And so her death left this huge hole, this huge grief.

It made him resentful.

It made him resentful toward her son, his nephew.

And all of this just only adds to his sense of emotional detachment.

And I just want to say that if you have lost someone that you loved, you will know that

Christmas brings back these memories like a hundredfold.

Even if it's been years, even if it's been decades since that person passed away, it

hurts more at this time of year, I think, than other times.

And of course, that is normal, absolutely normal.

But sometimes our grief can lead us to resentment or bitterness or detachment.

And again, it is helpful for us to know that Jesus, too, knew the pain of loss, even though

he was the son of God.

He wept at the grave of his dead friend.

Hurtful memories like ghosts.

They come to us unbidden and there is nothing that we can do to stop them.

But what we can do is we can invite God into those memories.

We can remind ourselves that Jesus understands those memories.

But it's also important, I just want to say, for us to reach out and talk to other people

about that pain and those memories.

In fact, we've got a group of people here at Trinity who are trained to walk with people

who go through abandonment, who've gone through heartbreak, who are suffering with loss.

And so I would encourage you, please email our care team today after the service, because

one of the biggest risks we face is not dealing with hurtful memories, because they can end

up holding us back in life.

And that is definitely what happened to Scrooge, right?

Some think of Christmas Carol is the story of how Scrooge couldn't let go of his money.

But really, it's a story of how he couldn't let go of his past.

Seven years after Scrooge's friend, maybe his one and only friend had passed away, he

still hadn't taken Jacob Marley's name off the door.

And there it stands as a symbol of how hurtful memories can leave us stuck in the past, refusing

to let us go.

So that's one type of memory that can haunt us.

But there's another type of memory I want to share with you today, not hurtful memories,

but I want to call them hollow memories.

You see, sometimes our memory can play tricks on us.

We think we're remembering something correctly, but we're not.

Our memories are sometimes just a hollow shell of what really happened in the past.

Now what I'm talking about is this thing that we call nostalgia.

And nostalgia kicks into really high gear around Christmas time, when we hear the carols,

when we smell the cookies, when we see the Christmas lights, oh, we're transported back

into our memories, memories of past Christmases.

In fact, when Scrooge is shown his very first memory by the ghost of Christmas past, he

was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each connected with a thousand

thoughts and hopes and joys of cares long, long forgotten.

That's nostalgia.

But here's the thing, nostalgia often lies to us.

In fact, the word nostalgia comes from two words, nastos, which means homecoming, and

algos, which means pain.

Pain.

Why pain?

Because the memories aren't real.

We're haunted by these idealized and sanitized memories.

All the negative stuff of the past has been filtered out, and these hollow memories, they

seduce us into this romanticized idea of how things used to be, but things never actually

used to be that way.

It's just what our mind is kind of telling us.

And so now we're aching and we're longing for this world, which we think we know, but

it's actually a world that we never ever did know.

Even when the ghost of Christmas past comes in and takes Scrooge on his journey, we're

not quite sure whether what Scrooge is seeing is actually completely accurate or not.

Look at this.

Look at this picture.

It's beautiful.

Snow topped houses, boys riding around on ponies.

It's the perfect picture postcard Christmas scene.

But the ghost of Christmas past says, these are but shadows of the past, which means maybe

these memories aren't actually located fully in reality, and maybe they're not telling

the full story because our memory is sometimes quite selective, isn't it?

The ghost of Christmas past selects certain moments out of Scrooge's past, but not other

parts.

Why not?

Those other parts could be important.

They might provide context for what's going on.

Our memory is always selective in what it remembers, and our memory is also quite limited

in what it remembers.

There are some things that you will remember vividly and you'll remember them your whole

life, and there's other things that will fade away and you will forget.

But just because we forgot them doesn't mean that they also weren't important in our life.

And memories, of course, are highly subjective, right?

We remember our interpretation of past events, but other people who were at those events

and they're with us, they may remember things very, very differently.

The Israelites, they were haunted by nostalgia after they escaped Egypt.

Now, remember, in Egypt, they suffered harsh, harsh labor and oppression, and they cried

out to God to rescue them, and God did rescue them.

Moses came and led them to freedom, but then nostalgia kicked in.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Actually, let's go back to Egypt.

It wasn't that bad, right?

Was it that bad?

No, it was actually pretty good.

Remember, we actually had lots of food we could eat there.

There was fires and lots of meat and all this good stuff to eat.

No, no, they're being haunted by a hollow memory.

Egypt was not a place of comfort.

It was not a place of abundance.

They're remembering wrong.

And I just want you to think about how we remember wrong at Christmas all the time.

Think about what you remember of the Christmas story.

Angels, the star, shepherds, wise men in the manger.

And yet this morning, we just read the Christmas story.

Oh, we just read it to us.

And you know what the story told us?

It told us that Mary got pregnant by the Holy Spirit, Joseph planted a worser, an angel

intervened and Jesus was born.

There was no star.

There was no shepherds and no wise men yet.

The Christmas story tricks us and the way it tricks us is that we end up blending together

all the different stories.

Matthew's story mixed with Luke's story in a way that we think it should go.

And we filter out actually the other things that we don't include in the Christmas story.

For example, Jesus birth, yeah, it was marked by these signs and wonders, but also misunderstanding

and jealousy and terror.

Joseph almost divorced Mary.

Herod slaughtered children in Bethlehem.

Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to flee to Egypt as refugees.

Even the angels, they were cute little cherubs with big plump cheeks.

We're told that these were like warrior angels that were announcing the arrival of God's

King.

See, the version that we put on the Christmas cards is the sanitized one, right?

It's the no hard travel, no fear, no violence.

But the real story is always more complex.

C.S.

Lewis, he describes nostalgia as a longing for something that has actually never appeared

in our experience.

And if we aren't careful, our Christmas can become less about celebrating what's actually

in front of us and more about chasing the ghost of some memory of what Christmas should

be.

And do you know what happens when we do that?

When we try to recreate some perfect Christmas that never was, right?

We always feel disappointed.

We'll always feel let down.

It will never measure up to those expectations, expectations that weren't actually based in

reality in the first place.

The truth of Christmas.

Is that what we're following?

Is that what we're celebrating?

Or is it some hollow memory that we're chasing after?

It's amazing how how Christmas can change for us when we actually embrace embrace what

God is doing here in front of us in this moment in the present and not get distracted by hollow

memories from the past.

And so so sometimes here we go.

The memories that haunt us are hurtful memories.

Other times these memories can be hollow memories.

But now we need to turn to those healing memories, healing memories that can transform us.

I mean, why did the ghost of Christmas past come to Scrooge in the first place?

What is your business here with me?

Your welfare.

I welfare.

Your reclamation.

Take he rise and walk with me.

What is your business here?

Your welfare.

Think about that.

The past.

Remembering the past is for his welfare and actually remembering things can heal us.

For example, memories of belonging can heal us just as memories of abandonment hurt us.

Remembering the times when we belonged, when we were included, they can heal us in amazing

ways.

Oh dear brother, I have come to bring you home.

Home, home, home.

Yes, home, home forever and ever.

Father is so much kinder than you.

He used to be that home is like heaven.

When Fan, Scrooge's sister, unexpectedly arrives in this scene, you can see there's a breakthrough

that kind of happens in him.

Her love breaks through his isolation.

It ends up stirring up in him this new desire for relationship.

It reminds him of what it felt like to be wanted, of what it felt like to belong.

I love her words.

Dear, dear brother, I've come to bring you home, home, home.

We all long for that place called home, that place of belonging.

And Jesus offers us real belonging by bringing us into the family of God.

The psalmist puts it this way.

God sets the lonely in families.

And at Christmas, Jesus entered into this world.

Why?

To bring us home to God.

His birth is actually the ultimate sign that we're not forgotten and that we're not abandoned,

but that we're deeply loved and we're invited into God's family.

Just as Sadie was welcomed into God's family this morning, Christmas reminds us God has

a seat at the table waiting for us.

Then arrives to bring Scrooge home and to heal his loneliness.

Jesus arrived to really bring us home and heal our loneliness too.

But the ghost of Christmas pass isn't done there yet.

No, he also wants to show Scrooge another memory that can really heal him, and that

is a memory of love.

Because just as memories of heartbreak hurt us, memories of love can heal us.

It makes no difference that I'm poor.

I love you because you're poor, not proud and foolish.

Will you always feel like that?

As long as I live.

Longer.

Forever and ever.

Then I accept your ring.

Ours.

You're beneath us.

God bless you, Anne.

All right, even though, even though this is a tough scene for Scrooge to rewatch, it reminds

him of a time in his life when he was actually capable of deep love and vulnerability.

He wasn't always the way he is.

He has the capacity to love people and to be loved.

And if he had it then, then he can rediscover it now.

Memories of love remind us of what's possible, inspiring us to open up our hearts again.

And if that's true, then you know what?

There is hope for all of us because Jesus loves us.

Jesus loved us first and his love therefore unlocks our ability to love others.

And again, that is what Christmas is all about.

Jesus came into the world to meet us right where we are, to show us that we're loved

by God and then to inspire us to love others.

You know, Scrooge's memory of love, it stirs up in him his own heart to love.

And the Christmas story is meant to do the same thing.

God's love for us at Christmas stirs us up to love others again.

And thirdly and finally, one other healing memory that really rescued Scrooge.

Scrooge was so hurt by, of course, the memory of his sister's death.

It was a deep, deep wound for him.

But a memory of joy can lift your spirits and turn everything around.

This is a picture of Scrooge being reminded of a Christmas party he once attended.

Recall this, no doubt.

Recall it.

Why, bless my soul.

It's a little Christmas.

It's a little Christmas.

I was a princess here.

Look, there's old Fezzerwick and Mr. Fezzerwick, top couple.

Was there ever a kinder man?

That's like, what a beautiful smile we see on Scrooge's face because he's just so

seen how his old boss, Fezzerwick, was able to bring celebration and joy into the life

of his employees.

And it rekindles in Scrooge this idea that actually joy and happiness aren't found in

hoarding wealth, but they're found in sharing life with others.

And if joy can heal us, then Christmas is the best medicine ever.

Christmas is the season where the angels announce to the shepherds, I bring you good news of

great joy for all the people.

Not just joy for the angels, not just joy for those shepherds that day, but joy for

the whole world, as we sang, joy for all the people.

Even in the midst of sadness and sorrow, we can remember that true joy comes from generosity

and community and the good news of Jesus Christ.

So all these memories, like ghosts, they haunt us.

And sometimes they're hurtful memories, and other times they're kind of hollow memories,

and other times they're healing memories.

And you can tell that it's healing because there's a moment that occurs just right after

this where you can see that the transformative work has already begun in Scrooge's life.

Was there ever a kinder man?

And yet what has this party cost him in your mortal money?

Three or four pounds at most.

Is that so much that he deserves your praise?

No, but it's not that.

The happiness he gave to us, his clerks and apprentices and everybody who knew him, was

as great as it would cost a fortune.

What's the matter?

Nothing.

You see, the transformation has begun.

The penny has dropped.

These memories are beginning their work of healing Scrooge.

Advent is a haunted season.

And Christians are a people who gather Sunday by Sunday to remember.

We're people who gather around this table Sunday by Sunday because Jesus said to do

this in remembrance of me.

To remember that because of Jesus, we're not abandoned, but we belong to a brand new family.

To remember that though we may suffer from heartbreak in Jesus, we are loved by God.

And to remember that that because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, even our

most painful memories of grief and loss can be transformed into memories of joy.

So memories, whatever memories are haunting you today, whatever lingers from your past,

I just want to invite you.

Invite God into those memories, both the painful ones and the joyful ones, and allow him to

bring that healing and hope.

Because our memories aren't there so that we can keep living in the past, but they're

there so we can have hope for the future.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.

This sermon was recorded at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario on December

8, 2024.