I’m not allowed to advertise but I noticed a publicity flyer today in the retail store where I work part-time. It read:
‘Black Friday Event – 14 days of Amazing Prices’
‘Black Friday’ is the term used now for what is usually the busiest shopping day of the year. It’s the fourth Friday in November, in America the day after Thanksgiving. It’s thought the term may have originated with city police departments describing the streets as ‘black’ with dense crowds and traffic.
Retailers advertise multiple special offers and shoppers spend literally billions on consumer items in the run-up to Christmas. Good for business, and those who can afford consumer items. Record numbers of X-boxes and i-phones will doubtless be purchased whether people can afford them or not!
Little surprise then perhaps that January is the month with the highest rate of depressionary illness as folk struggle to pay their credit card bills!
Anyway, it was just the header on the poster caught my eye and I thought:
Because of one special day, a particular Friday, we are given many days of amazing opportunity.
I’m not thinking shopping, I’m thinking salvation and sharing love in the family of God for like, well, forever!
That’s what the New Testament claims Jesus of Nazareth achieved for people on ‘Good’ Friday, on the cross at Calvary outside Jerusalem. It must have seemed a ‘black’ day, not just with the crowds there at Passover festival, but dark, frightening, horrible in the extreme for the savage injustice poured without mercy on an innocent man, a good man. He healed people and comforted many disadvantaged. But some leaders had him framed and watched with malevolent glee as he was butchered.
Not much good about that, we think. Just another atrocity. They seem almost commonplace these days. Ah well, back to the shopping.
Except that Friday is the point on which history and destiny swing.
For Jesus was no helpless victim, but the Son of God, the Heaven-appointed Saviour, very deliberately and purposefully humbling Himself (Philippians 2v8) that human sin might be fully atoned for and sinners like us receive the extended super-special offer of grace. (1 Peter 3v18)
This offer has extended something like 2000 years now but it is time-limited. We’re clearly informed that, ‘Now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.’ (2 Corinthians 6v2)
No good in complaining once the offers have been withdrawn. In this case, complaining will probably be the last thing on people’s minds.
Just take the point, and get humble with the One Who humbled Himself for us.
While there’s still time.
‘Black Friday Event – 14 days of Amazing Prices’
‘Black Friday’ is the term used now for what is usually the busiest shopping day of the year. It’s the fourth Friday in November, in America the day after Thanksgiving. It’s thought the term may have originated with city police departments describing the streets as ‘black’ with dense crowds and traffic.
Retailers advertise multiple special offers and shoppers spend literally billions on consumer items in the run-up to Christmas. Good for business, and those who can afford consumer items. Record numbers of X-boxes and i-phones will doubtless be purchased whether people can afford them or not!
Little surprise then perhaps that January is the month with the highest rate of depressionary illness as folk struggle to pay their credit card bills!
Anyway, it was just the header on the poster caught my eye and I thought:
Because of one special day, a particular Friday, we are given many days of amazing opportunity.
I’m not thinking shopping, I’m thinking salvation and sharing love in the family of God for like, well, forever!
That’s what the New Testament claims Jesus of Nazareth achieved for people on ‘Good’ Friday, on the cross at Calvary outside Jerusalem. It must have seemed a ‘black’ day, not just with the crowds there at Passover festival, but dark, frightening, horrible in the extreme for the savage injustice poured without mercy on an innocent man, a good man. He healed people and comforted many disadvantaged. But some leaders had him framed and watched with malevolent glee as he was butchered.
Not much good about that, we think. Just another atrocity. They seem almost commonplace these days. Ah well, back to the shopping.
Except that Friday is the point on which history and destiny swing.
For Jesus was no helpless victim, but the Son of God, the Heaven-appointed Saviour, very deliberately and purposefully humbling Himself (Philippians 2v8) that human sin might be fully atoned for and sinners like us receive the extended super-special offer of grace. (1 Peter 3v18)
This offer has extended something like 2000 years now but it is time-limited. We’re clearly informed that, ‘Now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.’ (2 Corinthians 6v2)
No good in complaining once the offers have been withdrawn. In this case, complaining will probably be the last thing on people’s minds.
Just take the point, and get humble with the One Who humbled Himself for us.
While there’s still time.
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