They call it “Black Friday!”: the day after Thanksgiving serves annually for so many as the official launch of the Christmas shopping season. Although Santa has been at the mall for weeks now, there is something about this day that stimulates a frenzy that many would rather avoid. The stores are open so early that some will not get any rest at all. And the amazing deals for the zealous are so incredible, that people are often willing to evade sleep, wait in long lines, and wrestle crowds to save some bucks.
The term “Black Friday” has various roots and uses. Arguably, it originally was coined due to the affects of congestion on street corners and traffic in the early days before gridlock was an everyday byword. Later, many used it to represent the day when retailers finally would proceed out of the unprofitable “red ink” zone and into “the black.” The last decade has seen so many reports of bad behavior, including outright violence, as hordes of consumers flood the merchandisers that the term is sometimes now used to represent the depravity of the human soul as the message of Thanksgiving and Christmas gets lost into oblivion replaced by something more akin to a need for greed.
If Thanksgiving meant anything at all on Thursday, it remains essential on Friday and throughout the year. The attitude of gratitude that is core to the holiday is a lifestyle choice that has power to change everything.
We live in an era of icons and trademarks, and Thanksgiving Day has been well branded, with its own recognizable logos of cartoon turkeys and historic guys wearing funny hats with buckles on them. When surveyed, most Americans know this symbolizes an annual respite from school and work filled with food, family, and football. But a closer examination into the documents left behind by the real pilgrims being commemorated in the pictures could be a poignant reminder to some of the real intent; prayerful community acknowledgment of indebtedness to God and authentic worshipful expressions of gratitude for provision, protection, and blessings in the name of Jesus Christ.
In process of the establishment of our nation, George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving address including the following:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: . . . And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; . . . to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue . . .”
A century later, Abraham Lincoln saw serious signs of spiritual decay in his generation and boldly attempted to call a wandering nation back. The following is an excerpt from his infamous Thanksgiving Proclamation.
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
May our prosperity not distract us, and the Black Friday bargains not confuse our hearts – the fruit of authentic thanksgiving is not self-centeredness. Let’s be among those that count our blessings and give more, and take less, slow to anger and generous to bless.