Advent Day 13: Ignorance and Want — Seeing the World’s Need Through Christ’s Eyes

(Theme: Compassion — The Call to See and Serve)

As the Ghost of Christmas Present’s time draws near its end, Dickens takes us to one of the most haunting moments in A Christmas Carol. From beneath the Spirit’s robe, two ragged, starving children emerge — a boy and a girl. Dickens writes:

“They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.”

The Spirit declares, “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”

These two spectral children embody the deep brokenness of humanity — the suffering that greed and indifference breed. Ignorance blinds us to truth; Want hardens us against compassion. Dickens’ warning rings like a prophet’s cry: a society (or a soul) that ignores the poor and uneducated, that turns away from suffering, will face its own destruction.

The Ghost’s revelation mirrors the heart of Scripture. In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies Himself with “the least of these” — the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. “Truly I tell you,” He says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40). To look upon suffering with compassion is to look upon Christ Himself.

Scrooge recoils in horror at the sight of the children. But that moment is crucial — he sees. His eyes, long closed to the world’s need, begin to open. Likewise, Advent calls us to see — not to avert our gaze from the pain, poverty, and injustice in our world, but to look upon it through the compassionate eyes of Christ.

Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, but also a cross at Calvary — the place where God Himself entered into the world’s Want and Ignorance to redeem it. The Incarnation means that God did not turn away from our poverty; He stepped into it.

This Advent season, may we remember that to celebrate Christ’s coming is to embrace His mission — to love the broken, to lift the fallen, and to bring light where darkness reigns.