"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters;
and he who has no
money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and
milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend
your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not
satisfy?
Listen diligently to
me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear,
and come to me; hear, that your soul may
live;
and I will make with you an everlasting
covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. . .
. . . Seek the Lord while he may be
found; call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way and the
unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to
the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for
he will abundantly pardon. Isa
55:1-7 ESV
Today is "Black
Friday", the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Stores opened at midnight today, and (as
everyone knows) the traffic around the shopping malls and department stores
will be heavy. This next month, forty percent of the retail sales will
occur. Credit card debt will soar. s people buy juicers, digital watches, neckties, video games, and toys. We will load our lawns
with Christmas decorations and trim our trees with lights and balls. In January, we will box them all up for next
year and figure out how we are going pay for our indulgences as the bills
return to us like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
What drives us to
spend so much? Mostly, it's
advertising. Everywhere we look there
are ads delivering the message that the only way we can enjoy the holidays is
through overspending, and the only way we
express love is by bombarding our friends and relatives with unnecessary
trinkets.
None of this has
anything to do with Christ's Nativity.
God doesn't really go in for extravagant shows. What He really wants is
our love and friendship. Love is when we
expect nothing in return for our investment in another person's happiness.
That's the kind of love God gave us at Christmas. It's hard for us to grasp that God's love
really is free, and that our love for others should be free as well. Our overblown materialism at Christmas is the
result of our feeling of inadequacy, that somehow we must prove ourselves to
God and others. We have responded to God's
free love with a performance-based celebration.
Our feelings of inadequacy drive us to try to achieve the illusion of
holiday perfection.
The holiday season
was created not for business, but for stillness. It is supposed to be a resting
time when can stop and meditate on where we are, where we have been and where
we have going. We have taken that resting
place in the year and turned it into a shopping mall. No wonder so many people
dread the holidays.
Christmas exists in
our hearts, not in the shopping malls.
You can't buy Christmas on Amazon or Ebay. Any time we choose, we may stop listening to
our cultural voices and pay attention to God's voice within.
Before we hit the
malls, let's fall to our knees and find
rest in our souls. Then when January comes again, we will be rested and ready
for the new year, refreshed in grace and
love.
Prayer
"God, spare us
from the burden of useless and futile obligations, and pointless activities
that give us neither rest nor joy.
Instead, renew us with Your
Spirit and point us to the manger, and beyond it to the Cross. Help us to be at peace in a world gone mad,
and to keep our eyes focused on you. In
Jesus' name, Amen."
