The Worlds Okayest Pastor

Trade Bah Humbug For Behold

• Jason Cline

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December can swallow us whole with its glitter and noise, but the rush is exactly why this conversation matters. We start where many homes do—hot chocolate, cozy blankets, and a lineup of beloved Christmas films—then follow the thread from Dickens’ Scrooge to the heart of the Gospel story. Dickens chose story over pamphlet to prick the conscience of a divided society; Scrooge’s “bah humbug” is more than a meme, it’s a mirror. Yet fiction can only nudge. To find a foundation, we turn to John’s opening lines, where the Word who made the world steps into it, and light cuts through four centuries of silence.

Luke grounds us in names and places; John tells us why. The birth in Bethlehem wasn’t a spectacle. No parades. No trumpets. Just a child in a manger and a quiet announcement to working shepherds who had stopped expecting wonder. That humility is the shock. Power often arrives with noise, but love comes close. We explore why God chose a cradle, how expectation of a warrior-king can blind us to a Savior who first came to share our life, and why grace and truth can’t be reduced to seasonal sentiment or self-improvement. Scrooge reforms after a haunting. John insists we need more than resolve; we need rescue.

Along the way, we connect personal rituals, cultural habits, and ancient hope. We ask what actually changes when light breaks into a dark world and why centering Christ reframes gifts, plans, and even our patience for the season’s chaos. If you’ve felt the holidays blur into errands and empty cheer, this is a gentle reset and a bold claim: the manger is not a metaphor, it’s the moment history turned toward hope. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who could use good news today. If this resonated, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s your why for Christmas?

SPEAKER_01:

I was uh I I was thinking about November, like I feel like once you hit October, like you go October, November to December is like a whirlwind.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, like it's like in it's crazy. Back to school.

SPEAKER_01:

Give them a whole month off. Like I don't I know there's a plan. But I was thinking the other day, my my you know, we have Disney Plus in our house, and and the moment December first hit on Disney Plus, every Christmas movie in existence was on the platform. Like any resemblance of any other holiday or any other day of the year disappeared. All of a sudden it's Disney movies everywhere. And and so that's something we enjoy in our house, right? We we we set a win. This is December's the time when you get together and and you start making more hot chocolate. I love hot chocolate. You start bringing out the really cozy blankets, you you get together and and you watch your favorite Christmas movies: The Polar Express, Home Alone, Elf, Die Hard, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I mean, all of these movies are classics. I remember growing up in our house, we would watch a Christmas story on repeat. You know, it's on a channel nowadays on Christmas Eve, it runs for 24 hours. I don't want to watch it once, let alone 12 times. Right? And that's just that's me. I never really liked that movie, uh, but my brothers watch it every year. And and so it's an amazing thing, right? But but we have all these the movies that we watch, and and so one of the classics, and it's it's come in movie form a couple of times, but it actually started as a book. Uh Charles Dickens wrote a book called A Christmas Girl. Uh, and and I love it because if you've ever seen the the adaptation, my favorite adaptation is the Muppets adaptation. I think that one's just absolutely brilliant. There's something about Muppets telling the story uh of Ebenezer Scrooge that just kind of resonates, right? But but but the entire story, so when when Charles Dickens wrote the story, uh he was he was actually dealing with there's a couple different things going on, right? So the the original story was written back in 1843. Uh and so Charles Dickens was he was really addressing some of the concerns that were going on in England at the time. Uh he actually wrote the book in a month, which I think is the whole thing is crazy. So he started writing at the end of October in 1843 and produced it uh and completed it November of 1843. I I can't imagine writing anything that fast. But but but Charles Dickon was living in a time when England was really kind of in a dark place. There was a lot of suffering, there's a lot of social divide, that there were a lot of people uh really just not taking care of people. And so he he writes from this perspective, and and he originally he had this idea to write a pamphlet, a political pamphlet. And if you know anything about political pamphlets, they usually go from hand to trash pretty quick, right? And so he decided, he opted against that, and he decided instead to write a story. And so this is where a Christmas carol is born out of. And of course, the the main antagonist of a Christmas carol was Ebenezer Screw. Everyone knows it, right? Bah humbug. Bah humbug, right? One of the shortest, most simplest lines in the world, but but the moment you say it, your brain refocuses and resonates because it goes back to this story. This story of a very wealthy old man who's very self-centered, very self-focused, didn't care about the poor, didn't care about the needy. All he cared about was his bank account. So to him, Ebenezer Scrooge looks at the culture, he looks at this time around Christmas, and and he sees people in need, and what he sees is he sees a burden. People just want to be off. People are lazy, people waste money on gifts they don't really need. His entire focus, and and so when Charles Dickens writes this character, he writes of a character, and he's dealing really with some with a social status. He's dealing with people who are looking at the poor, looking at the hurting, looking at the broke, and saying, we don't have time for them. And and so Ebenezer Scrooge is the perfect enemy, he's the perfect bad guy. Everyone hates him. From the very outset, you realize that this is not a good man. So Ebenezer lives out his life not caring about family, not caring about anything but himself. The closest relationship he had was his business partner who died. But even then, it's questionable. And so the story goes as Ebenezer gets in as we get into the Christmas Carol, Ebenezer, you know, Marley visits him. Again, I love the the Muppets version, the two older grumpy muppets in chains. Perfect, by the way. And he gets told that he's gonna get visited by three ghosts, and these three ghosts are gonna force him to kind of confront who he is, right? So they look at his past, they kind of establish where he's been, they look at his present, how he's acting now, and then they look, they look towards the future. And is his death, his ultimate untimely death. And and so the through the story of Scrooge, we're we're faced with a man who is is really kind of in a crisis situation. He's he's not he he has to confront that there's something wrong with him internally. And so these ghosts arrive and and and they teach him some things along the way. And and so that that's the story uh of Scrooge. And listen, we're gonna we're gonna dive into that over the next couple weeks because there's a whole lot there to unpack. But there's a a Hope Media Group, which is an organization that has kind of put this whole series together, and I'm excited to kind of work with them. Uh, they have produced um a retelling, if you will, of Scrooge, of a Christmas Carol. So it's it's an audio drama. So for those of you who have kids who look at TVs all the time, they're gonna have to sit and listen to something. I we haven't started that yet in our house. I'm curious to see how that plays out. But I'm telling you, I've listened to it and it's really engaging, and I think it's really cool. And and so one of the things we're gonna do, and again, we'll talk about this later, but when you guys, when your kids come up from upstairs, uh they're gonna have packets with them, and those packets have a QR code, a car with a QR code that'll take you to a podcast that'll listen to the whole series by the Hope Media Group. It's about an hour and a half long, but it's broken up into sections. And then what you have is you have a packet that goes through different activities throughout the day because we we want this to be engaging. Like I don't want you guys just to sit here and listen to me preach and then go home, like, well, that was boring. Instead, I what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna kind of pick apart this story and we're gonna look at the life of Ebenezer Scrooge and through the process of looking at a Christmas tarot, we're actually gonna find out that there's a lot of there's a lot of there's a lot of things in the story that that we find in scripture. There's a it's a story of hope, it's a story of redemption, it's a it's a story of transformation, it's it's a story of a man who who's very much broken, but Charles Dickens uses it to inspire people to really look at their life, to look at how they live, to look at how they to treat people. He he uses the story to emotionally push people into the idea that no one wants to be like Scrooge. And that's the thing, right? Whenever we read the story, you see this story. My guess is the moment I mention Scrooge, you have someone in your life that popped up, and you're like, oh yeah, that that person's a Scrooge. Because that's where we go, right? We we we when we look at antagonists of stories, we we like to lump other people in the category. But but Dickens, as he wrote the story, it's supposed to be self-reflection. Because the reality is the same world that he was in in 1843, England isn't too far off from where we are. Christmas and this culture is has become about gifts and presents and things. Around this this time of year, it it's always crazy to me, but around this time of year, we have to remind ourselves to be good people. And I think Dickens understood that that our nature is to care about ourselves, to make it about us. Again, I want to unpack that next couple weeks. But this morning, we're gonna talk about a different story. You know, stories have this way uh of really kind of resonating with us. I think about uh a couple examples in the Bible uh when Nathan is confronting David uh because of his sin. He tells a a story. Right? He and and we use stories that that's why we love movies. We love movies because movies they they capture our attention, they they capture our focus. That's why stuff like a Christmas Carol, we're so drawn to it, because we we we can identify with it, and it it forces us to think differently, to to have a different perspective, right? So like stories are an incredible way to it's an incredible medium to to get people to an idea, to a thought. But a Christmas carol, it's a story of fiction. It's not real. It it might resonate with us. We might be able to identify with it, but but really it's a story. It's a well-written story. And and I have to say that because what I'm about to read next is not a story, it's an account. It's a an historical account of events that really happen in a real time, in a real place with real people. It only seems fitting that that as we get into the Christmas season, that we go to the start of the Gospels. Each of them gives an account of Jesus' birth. Luke lays out in chapter one that he kind of does the forerunning, talks about John the Baptist, talks about um Jesus coming, talks about you know, we see Mary's song in there, and you know, those kind of things. And and so John actually read through Luke 2, which I was excited about, and I'm like, and when he came back, I'm like, you stole my scripture. And he's like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, listen, it's okay. There's only so many scriptures you can tell around Christmas, right? But Luke gives a really detailed account of the events as they unfold. That's important. But John, when John starts his gospel, he's not so much concerned with what happened and the events that happened. That's important. But John starts out with in the very first chapter of John chapter one, he starts out with the reason. The reason behind the birth. So John chapter one, starting in verse one through eighteen. John says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is not overcome it. There is a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light, he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world. And then the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified concerning him, and he cried out, saying, This is the one I spoke about, when I said, He who comes after me has surpassed me, because he was before me. Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God, and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. So John chooses. This is why I love the Gospels, because they're written from the same focus, but different perspectives. John, instead of talking about the genealogy and the birthplace and all of the things that point towards Jesus. By the way, Luke does a fantastic job of this, and Matthew has the genealogy included. And then I love Mark, but I feel like Mark was just like, hey, let's write this down. But but John, what he does is he wants people to understand that yes, Jesus was born, yes, he came in the world, but but I need you to understand why. Again, when we talk about stories, John is writing an account, a testimony of the things that he himself has found out. He wants people to know that God has come into the world, the one and only Son. That he wasn't received the way that he should have been, but but that he came in to offer grace that was already offered. He came to come into the world and to take us beyond the law of Moses to help us understand that there was more to life. You know, and it's such an interesting thing because you and I, our perspective on this is 2,000 some years old. We look at the birth of Jesus and we've seen it, right? We've we've heard every rendition of it. If you've been in church long enough, you've heard every scripture a thousand times, you've seen every child's play that talks about the birth of Jesus. No matter how creative it gets, it always ends the same. You've heard hundreds of songs written about it. You and I have constantly been thrown into this idea and constantly taught this idea of the birth of Jesus, and we re-emphasize it. By the way, that's a great thing. But but at the time when Jesus was born, Israel was in a really dark place. 400 years between the last prophecy of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus. Four hundred years of of what most scholars would deem silence. No word from God. They've heard nothing, they've seen nothing. They're living in oppression, they've been through exile multiple times, they're now living under the Roman rule and they can't understand what's happening. They they they're existing, but but their hope is all but destroyed. And then one night an angel shows up to a young virgin and says, Hey, you're about to be with child. I I can only imagine how terrifying that would be. A lot of scholars think that uh Joseph and Mary were probably closer to teenagers, maybe later teenagers in their life when they had uh Jesus. So I can't imagine being a teenager, and an angel so an angel shows up and says, Listen, you're gonna give birth to a son, and he's gonna be God, and and he's from God, and he's Emmanuel. And I could tell you, as someone who has been a teenager, I would probably be like, no, thank you. I I don't want that. But but Mary and Joseph understood that that this had to happen. This is why they talk about Mary the way that they do, that God chose her. And how incredible that was. Luke chapter 2, verses 1 through 38. This is again, this is Luke's account. It says in those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Caranas was governor of Syria, and everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up to the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David, and he went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him, expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed them in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over the flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all your people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You'll find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. You know, I love this account because again, think about it. Four hundred years of nothing, uh silence. Mary and Joseph know. Elizabeth knows. But but the night that Jesus is born, angels show up to shepherds and they make the announcement. That today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is your Messiah. This terminology to them wasn't uncommon. They had heard about the Messiah. They had heard stories passed down from generation to generation. They had believed that other men were messiahs who weren't. They were going about their day, living their life, doing their job. Oftentimes, I can imagine in the back of their mind, they were wondering what's next for us. It's been 400 years. We've seen no prophet, we have no new writings, no new conversations, and all of a sudden, in a field with a bunch of shepherds and a bunch of gross sheep, an angel shows up and says, Today is the day. In the town of David, your Savior has been born. Talk about an opening to a story. Life is just going on about its business. Day to day, day to day. Listen, I feel like that sometimes that life is feels mundane. You wake up, you feed the kids, they go to school, you go to work, you come home, you probably go to an activity, you get the kids fed, you fight to get them to brush your teeth, they finally go to bed, your wife, husband, whatever, you sit on the couch, you fall asleep while you're watching a movie because you're not really watching the movie, and then you go to bed, and then you do it all over again. That that's like the cycle. That's the season my family is in right now. The other day on Friday, I had nothing on my calendar, and I was worried that I missed something because that's the first time in a year and a half that I've had nothing to do on a day of the week. But but that's what happens, right? So these shepherds are going about their business, living their life, living day to day, and all of a sudden an angel shows up and says, Listen, today is the day a savior has come. They're terrified. But their response is to go and check it out. They they they hear and they they've heard this word messiah before. They know that God can save them. He he's done it in the past. But but it's been 400 years. Why why now? Why in this little town of David? And so Jesus is born. It's not fantastic. He didn't come with horns and trumpets. Wasn't they didn't roll out the red carpet, they didn't set up fireworks, they didn't have a massive baby reveal, gender reveal. In the town of Bethlehem, a little baby was born, and the only proclamation that we see is a group of angels who say, Listen, you shepherds, your Savior has come. When I think about why John wrote his gospel and why he chose to write it the way that he did, because again, Luke gives a really great detailed version of the events that happen. But I think John chose to talk about the why. Because the why matters, right? When we look at a Christmas Carol, we can get lost in the story. We can stay focused on Scrooge. We can read the story and say, oh, great, Scrooge has redemption at the end and everything's good. But but we can get lost in the details and we can miss the why. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge is a warning. It's a warning of what happens when people lose sight of what matters. It's a warning of what happened when people are so worried about money and finances that they lose sight of who they are. It's a warning about what happens when greed takes over. That's the why. It didn't have to be grand, it didn't have to be rolled out on the red carpet, it didn't need fireworks. All you need to understand is that the reason why Jesus was born, the reason why you and I celebrate Christmas is because when the world was at its darkest, four hundred years of silence, God stepped into it. Nowhere in any other religion, no other stories, no other events can even come close to the idea that God chose to step into our world as a baby. Of all the things he could have chosen, he showed up as a baby. I love babies, but they're useless. I'm not trying to be mean, but they're they're so they're needy and they need full-on attention, and they can't do anything. They can't cook, they can't clean, they just lay there. I love kids. I have three. But but but he made himself as helpless as you could possibly make yourself. I love the way A.W. Tozer says it this way when he's talking about uh the birth of Jesus. He says the eternal world, uh word, the eternal son came to redeem us. He says, Do you ever think, as I do, of the mystery of divine love and grace? How he walked around the carpenter's shot uh shop on little rubbery legs. Oh, a baby is a harmless thing and it captures you more quickly than a regiment of soldiers. If you had seen eternity walking around, if you had seen eternity walking around on baby rubbery legs, tumbling and falling uh flat among the shavings, you would have run and picked him up and dusted him off, whispering, it doesn't hurt, be a big boy. He would have smiled, shaking away a tear and toddled off for another tumble. That was eternity walking in the flesh. It was God Almighty coming to live among us to redeem us and to save us from the recent and temporal and the transient and to give us eternity. For whatever reason, God chose to reveal Himself to us in the weakest form possible. Child. But I think Tozer's right. Because a child will capture will capture your attention long before a king on a horse.

SPEAKER_00:

I can prove this, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

I have a four-year-old is the star of the show. People are drawn to him. We are drawn to kids. We see kids, we we pay attention. God chose to show up as a child because in in the moment it didn't make a whole lot of sense. The shepherds were told a savior had come, your messiah has been born. And I can only imagine they were like, what does that mean? That that's not what we expected. That that's not how we expected this story to go. We we wanted a king. We we wanted someone to ride in and to save us from Rome. And God said, No, you don't understand. I need to start at the beginning. I need to walk in your shoes. I need to live among you. I need to be Emmanuel. I need to be God with you. I need to show you there's a better way to do this. That you can live for me, that you can be focused on the things that I'm calling you to do. I need you to understand that your Savior understands your life. I'm not some far-off God, but instead, I'm sitting in the room right next to you. I'm not some distant ideology. I came. I ate, I breathed, I stumbled, I tripped over my own feet, I hurt, I felt pain. I was just like you. But I was also me. I was holy and I was righteous and I was perfect, and I did everything that I could to show you a better way.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you needed saved, and there was no way you could do this yourself. So I came. I lived, I loved, and I died.

SPEAKER_01:

Because that's how much I needed you, that's how much I wanted you back. Whatever it took, whatever sacrifice needed, whatever amount of pain, suffering, ridicule I had to do endure, I did it for you. So so it makes sense when when John writes his gospel and he says, understand that Jesus came to redeem you.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the difference.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the difference between Scrooge and what John says. Scrooge is a story of self-reflection, and and he looks at his life and and and Scrooge comes to the conclusion that there's something wrong and he has to change, and he does, and that's a great thing. John says, You needed saved, and you couldn't save yourself. So the Son of God came in as a baby. He lived among you. He did everything that you couldn't. That's why Christmas exists. That's why we celebrate this time of year. Listen, it's not about the gifts. It's not about the Black Friday deals. It's not about the family. Listen, this is not bad things, but it's not about your family. It's not about gathering together. It's so much bigger than that. Thousands of years ago, ago, the world was dark. No hope. Israel was was stuck in oppression and they were lost and and they had no idea what to do. Jesus stepped in. Born in a manger. I mean, the lowest of lows. And that night the whole world changed. That night hope showed up. Light was found in the darkness. Redemption was available. All of those things happen because of Jesus. Without him, none of this exists. And that's why, like, when I talk about Christmas, that's our job, is to tell people about this hope and this redemption and this love and this grace and this mercy that they're only going to find in Jesus. You know, I think about it every year. People always get all caught up on happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Merry Exmas. Listen, you know why I tell you Merry Christmas? It's not because I'm taking a political stand. I promise. That's not it. I tell you Merry Christmas because Christ is the only thing that matters. That's why I say that. Because I'm hoping in the back of your mind, maybe a conversation will come and we get to talk about the Christ of Christmas. Because without him, none of this matters. All of the Black Friday deals in the world, all of the money in your bank account, all of your family gatherings, none of that will save you. Only Jesus. At just the right time when the world was at its darkest, God stepped into the world to bring hope and light and redemption and salvation. That's why we celebrate. Yes, Ebenezer Scrooge finds redemption. That's a good thing. And we'll we'll talk about that. But that's not the point. That's not why we watch Christmas movies. That's not even why we're talking about Scrooge. I think it's great, by the way, to connect the dots. I I loved it to do stuff like this because I hope when people read a Christmas carol, they think of the things we've talked about and they find redemption and mercy and hope and all that. But at the end of the day, the greatest story that's ever been told was the night Jesus stepped into the world. That is an account, that's a narrative, if you will, that has continued to change the course of humanity. And like I said earlier, it's not a fiction, it's not something written by Charles Dickens. It is given to us by God. These men who wrote the gospels, God gave them the words. He revealed to them. They told this account because the world needed to know that hope was still here. That hope is found in the only one who can save us. A Messiah has been born. Your Savior has come. Don't miss that. This holiday season. Let's break.