Bishop of Colchester, Roger Morris and his Christmas message

It is a surprisingly faithful retelling of Charles Dickens’s original 1843 novel (with the Great Gonzo starring as the narrator Dickens - aided by Rizzo the Rat).

Sir Michael Caine plays the irascible Ebenezer Scrooge while Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy appear as Bob and Emily Cratchit respectively.

The story is a familiar one. Ebenezer Scrooge is a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.

He forcibly ejects the charity collectors from his offices, treats his cheerful nephew with disdain and takes exception to the idea that his hard-working clerks should have a day off at Christmas.

In truth, it is a film about salvation. But if the film is about salvation, then who is the person most in need?

You could argue that the neediest individual is Timothy Cratchit.

Tiny Tim, as we call him, rests upon his father’s shoulder. He bears a little crutch, and his limbs are supported by an iron frame.

A persistent cough suggests that either consumption, renal failure or rickets also threaten his life.

The Ghost of Christmas Present tells of a chilling scene: “I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.”

Clearly Tiny Tim is in need. But this is not about the salvation of Tiny Tim.

Bob Cratchit is also a man in need. In Charles Dickens’s original story, we are told that Bob Cratchit works for 15 shillings a week at a rate of thruppence an hour.

Working 60 hours a week for the equivalent (in 2018) of £69 would certainly place Bob Cratchit among the “in-work poor”.

But this is not about the salvation of Bob Cratchit.

The shocking revelation of the film is that the person most in need of salvation is Ebenezer Scrooge.

He is financially comfortable. His business appears to be successful. He has every material comfort that he could wish for.

Yet the film presents him as the one in direst need of salvation.

The film shows the events in Scrooge’s past that hardened his heart and desensitised him to the needs of others.

When Scrooge is told that many poor people would rather die than go into a workhouse, he replies: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

The late Jacob and Robert Marley (played by the cantankerous Statler and Waldorf) sing: “Doomed, Scrooge, you’re doomed for all time. Your future is a horror story, written by your crimes.”

The film does not hold back. In one vision of the future, Scrooge is shown his belongings being sold to a backstreet dealer, the bed sheets still warm to the touch.

Rizzo the Rat exclaims: “Boy, this is scary stuff! Should we be worried about the kids in the audience?”

Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa) once said: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for.

“We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.

“There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love.

“The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty - it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality.

“There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

The greatest poverty revealed in the film is not the in-work poverty of Bob Cratchit nor the debilitating sickness from which Tiny Tim suffers.

The greatest poverty is the lack of love in the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Even though the ghosts call Scrooge to repent, it is the likes of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim that eventually make his salvation possible by providing him with the opportunity to show kindness and so to feel the warmth of human love.

At the heart of our Christmas message is the good news of salvation.

Like Scrooge, we may not always recognise our need of salvation.

Our sense of desperation may be blunted by our relative wealth and comfort.

We may think that we are fine. Life hardens us to the needs of others and causes our hearts to grow cold.

But deep within us, as Saint Teresa says: “There is a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

Scrooge’s salvation not only freed him from the captivity of his selfishness, but it enabled him to give and receive love.

Saint Paul said “the grace of God has dawned upon the world with salvation for all people.” (Titus 2:11).

God’s work of liberation, restoration, wholeness, and salvation lies at the heart of what Christmas is all about.

Jesus came in order that we might be transformed by his presence and redeemed by his love.

He came to free us from the captivity of our own selfishness and to enable us to give and receive love.

As the song rings out in the Muppet Christmas Carol: “It’s true, wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.”