As part of our family’s tradition of watching Christmas movies during the holidays, this year we chanced upon (i.e. Netflix strongly “suggested”), “Spirited” starring Will Farrell and Ryan Reynolds.

(If you haven’t watched the movie yet, be warned, there may be spoilers up ahead.)

The movie is a musical reimagining of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge gets a heart makeover and goes from “Bah, humbug!” to becoming benign and benevolent.

Much like the book, the movie, “Spirited” revolves around a modern-day Scrooge (Ryan Reynolds) who is considered “unredeemable” because of his cut-throat business tactics. The spiritual factory comprising the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Future almost toss his file out—but then the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) intervenes to help Ryan Reynold’s character see the error of his ways, repent, and become a regular nice guy.

I love, love, love the idea of the “unredeemable” file being carefully salvaged by Will Ferrell. But I feel like I may have seen that exact same plot before. Hmm. Let me think where that may have been. Oh yeah, it was only in the bestselling book of all time, the Bible.

God decided to salvage every “file” that was written off, considered hopeless, that was tossed into the discard pile. That’s Christmas. God sent Jesus to save the seemingly unredeemable.

But here’s where the plot lines between the two scripts diverge—while the “unredeemable” character in “Spirited” needs to work hard to right his wrongs, in the Christmas story Jesus did it all for us. Tim Keller says this: “Only Jesus says, “I have come for the weak. I have come for those who admit they are weak. I will save them not by what they do but through what I do.” Unlike the Ghost of Christmas Present, He doesn’t wait for us to set the record straight.

Jesus comes as the Light in the darkness. And He comes as the Light as those who are completely and utterly unable to pull themselves out of the darkness. He is our Hope in our helplessness.

This Christmas if you feel like all hope is lost, if you feel beyond redemption, if you feel like you’ve messed up too much and too often, know that God is not giving up on you. You don’t have to create your own salvation. You don’t need to pull yourself together. You just need to admit your own weakness. He understands. Because He came down and experienced it all.

In a manger tucked away in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago, Hope came down. Will you welcome this Hope into your weakness?

Wishing you a blessed and hope-filled Christmas!

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