It was the first Sunday of Advent, and our church is embarking on a new study for the season. A well-loved story of the holiday is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is in the pages of this story we meet the ghost of Jacob Marley, dragging his chains behind him as he confronts his former business partner, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge's transformation is a wonderful story of redemption and hope, and Dickens' concern about poverty and social justice resonates with us today. We are accustomed to seeing paper chains as we count off the days before Christmas, but seeing our minister dragging a very different kind of chain encourages us to consider old habits in new ways.
