So did you manage to pick up any bargains on Black Friday? Black Friday, if you don’t know, is something we have inherited from the USA. It’s the day following Thanksgiving Day (the fourth Thursday of November), and is often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. They say that the origin of Black Friday come from the fact that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss ("in the red") from January through to November, and "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or "in the black". In recent years, most major retailers open very early and offer promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season. It’s apparently the biggest shopping day of the year.
On Friday morning, news items were reporting of people queuing up from 6pm on the Thursday night to get into shops such as Tesco and Asda to take advantage of the sales which began at midnight; cheerleaders to welcome customers as they rushed in the doors to bag their bargain, and scuffles between customers in various shops around the country as they battled to pick up said bargains. Even internet customers had to queue. If you were looking for a bargain on the Currys website you were informed that you were in a queue and had to wait up to one hour to be able to browse their bargains.
And this now is apparently a symbol of the beginning of the Advent season!
It seems to me that there are so many things that have taken over Advent, and have become symbols of the beginning of the season: Black Friday, the first Christmas advert, the first Christmas items going on sale in the shops, the first Christmas music cd being played in the car, the Christmas decorations going up to name but a few and it’s fine that we do those things in readiness to celebrate the first coming of Jesus. But his coming was about bringing freedom from and joy that is beyond the things of this world.
I pray that over this Advent season, we will realise that Jesus doesn’t require any of these worldly symbols. That he can set us free from all of that that. I pray that we’ll discover ways to find peace, be generous without being unwise and live in the blessing of a world transformed by the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The birth of one baby 2000 years ago changed the world forever – in ways that even God’s people couldn’t image. The birth of that baby has changed our lives too. Let’s arrive at the manger together with a new depth and a little more like the people that God created us to be.
Dear God, as we begin the Advent season again this year, may it be fresh and new – transformed by a deeper understanding of who you are, who your son is and who you created me to be. Set me free from everything that does not come from you, so that I may be centred and peaceful no matter what December may throw at me. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, “God with Us.” Amen.
God Bless
Captain Clare