In this first of five lectures, I offer a Christian existentialist reading of Charles Dickens's masterpiece A Christmas Carol.

This work is about the meaning of Christmas, which is the meaning of the incarnation. The life of the world, the eternal, entering into the now, in order to redeem the past, present and future through his death. The incarnation isn't separable from the crucifixion, just as the meaning of life is not separable from the meaning of death, and the meaning of the past and future is not separable from the present.

Scrooge's conversion must begin with the acceptance of his death - which he comes to accept in the person of Marley (who is himself; he never painted out 'Marley' from the "Marley and Scrooge" sign) ; with the fact that he is a "...covetous old sinner." Scrooge cannot approach the meaning of his life until he acknowledges that he - like Marley, or even more so - is truly a dead man, as dead as a door nail. The book opens with "Marley was dead to begin with," it could just as well began: "Scrooge was dead to begin with"...and unless we accept this fact "nothing wonderful can become of this story."