ILLUSTRATING THE POINT

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas”: Changed Attitude

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a fanciful movie based on Dr. Seuss' classic holiday poem. The Grinch, a hairy, green, cantankerous beast, looks down on the town of Whoville from his home on a mountain of garbage. What he sees disgusts him. The people who live in Whoville (called the Whos) love Christmas and all its trappings. Possessions, decorations, lights, and partying consume the Whos. The Grinch's disgust originated when he was mocked as a child because of his odd looks and the Christmas gift he hand made. The Whos hate the Grinch as much as he loathes them.

Intent on destroying Christmas, the Grinch single-handedly devastates Whoville by stealing all their presents and Christmas trees. Tucked in his hideaway, he prepares to destroy all the loot he has stuffed into a gigantic pack. But before he can, he hears the townspeople singing in the valley.

The narrator explains: "Then the Grinch heard a sound rising over the snow. It started in low and it started to grow." The Grinch grimaces as the narrator continues: "But the sound wasn't sad, but merry very. Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, were singing without any presents at all."

The Grinch is bewildered by these people who are robbed of their possessions yet are happy and singing.

So explains the narrator: "He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming. It came. Somehow or other it came just the same. And the Grinch with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow stood puzzling and puzzling how could it be so."

Finally, the Grinch speaks: "It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

His eyes grow warm and soft and as big as saucers. Suddenly, he throws himself to the ground, convulsing as his heart grows three times the size it was before. He laughs. He cries. He claims to feel all toasty inside. Unfamiliar with tears, he thinks he is leaking, while a brilliant shaft of sunlight bathes his green face and reveals a sincere smile. The conversion of the Grinch is matched by a brilliant sunrise.

But then it dawns on him that the stolen gifts are about to slide off the mountain and be destroyed. For the first time, he actually cares. Transformed, he risks his life to keep the gifts from falling from the precipice. The Grinch's changed heart is matched by changed behavior.

Elapsed time: Measured from the beginning of the opening credit, this scene begins at 1:22:21 and lasts approximately four minutes.

Content: How the Grinch Stole Christmas is rated PG for some crude humor.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Universal Pictures, 2000), rated PG, written by Dr. Seuss, Jeff Price, and Peter Seaman

THE MORE YOU KNOW

“Some years ago we had a lot of denominational leaders visiting the campus where I teach. In one meeting with the faculty, we went around the room and asked this diverse group about their call to the ministry. Some of them had some extraordinary experiences. For others, it had been a fairly cerebral thing. But as I listened to the denominational leaders and then faculty, do you know what I found in common without a single exception? Each one of them would speak of a text that had just leaped off the page and grabbed them by the throat and wouldn't let go.

What was common in all of them was a profound, unswerving, immutable passion that believed the gospel is so central in all of human life that nothing in comparison with its proclamation is worth doing.

Not for a moment am I saying God doesn't call some Christians to be chemists or others to be garbage collectors. But you will find in the proclaimers of God's message those who sense a call upon their lives. You will find without exception they have this sense of the sheer non-negotiable value of the gospel.”

Don Carson, Preaching Today #205

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans ... sending us people with claims and petitions. ... It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God's "crooked yet straight path."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Martyred Christian. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 1.

I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” G.K. Chesterton

“It would be just another illusion to believe that reaching out to God will free us from pain and suffering. Often, indeed, it will take us where we rather would not go. But we know that without going there we will not find our life.” Henri Nouwen

“God is looking for men in whose hands his glory is safe.” A.W. Tozer

“Preaching is not the art of making a sermon and delivering it. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering him.” Bishop Quayle