As I understand it, the really trendy Christian thing to do is to bash Black Friday and bemoan the reality that American consumerism has reached the point where people are literally getting trampled to death at Wal-Mart. Then among the Christians, the still more progressive voices have begun to take a long look in the mirror instead. They’re calling the Church away from its own consumerism, pointing out that Christians are basically indistinguishable from the larger culture in this department; we are the Tramplers.
I think both of those stances are appropriate and challenging. They connect with me personally, and the numbers seem to bear them out also. And though I enjoy these commentaries on the season, I’m not really here to respond to Black Friday in either of those ways. I just want to talk about the eternal rhythms of the heart right now. I feel a lot like my girlfriend for having just written that, but it’s true. The internal matters of the heart wrapped up in this time of year are much more compelling to me than the cultural phenomena.
I didn’t participate in this year’s Black Friday until the afternoon, though I’m not even sure that counts as participation. But I participated on purpose. I am a giver (by spiritual gifting), and I love to think of ways I can part with something temporary like money in order to give someone a gift of permanence at Christmastime. I consider it a way of celebrating the permanent shift in relational dynamics that occurred between God and man as the the result of Christ’s invasion of earth (Colossians 1:19-23). We have everlasting life with God through Christ, so I want to celebrate his coming by giving everlasting gifts. Thus, I really enjoy thinking up gifts that will bless far beyond the paper I spend on them. So Black Friday is a day to live fully inside my gifting.
But even more, I love the idea of looking forward to Christmas. Thanksgiving is a time of reflection and gratitude, but Christmas is a time of communal celebration and delight; a time of abundance overflowing in gifts lavished upon loved ones. I love that the day after we take time to reflect and give thanks, we are already anticipating a day of celebration in community, in what many people (Christian or not) consider the closest thing to heaven they will experience while still on earth: holiday season spent with close family. I love the rhythm of Thanksgiving’s reflective gratitude leading into the celebratory anticipation of Christmas because it poignantly reflects the eternal timeline of our lives.
Right now, I am in the body, enjoying my God, reflecting on Him, giving thanks for who He is and how He loves. My life is a sort of Thanksgiving holiday. But I’m also looking forward to a great celebration with intimate family in heaven, that place of perfect contentment and abundance that I was actually made for. And so my life is a lot like the Thanksgiving/Black Friday transition: a time of reflective peace in my current imperfect existence with God, looking forward to a more perfect time of celebration and overflow within intimate community. I love that during this time of year, I become keenly aware of the reality that I am a man living between two worlds.
But the culture threatens to steal from us this joy and understanding of the holiday season. It’s a sad reality that many families will force a false sense of abundance upon themselves and their families by going into crippling debt in order to give expensive gifts, rather than seeking to symbolize heaven’s abundance within their financial means. And movements like The Advent Conspiracy have formed because Americans have made the additional error of over-emphasizing the beauty in the material abundance of Christmas to the neglect of the more important relational abundance of the season. Check out their latest promo video below:
Like the alternative experience of Christmas season portrayed in the video, I think that when celebrated in humility, this is one of the most beautiful times of year. So I’ve tried to remain intentionally grounded during the holidays.
Like I said earlier, I shopped Black Friday in the afternoon this year. And I did that on purpose. Some people I know actually plan their Thanksgiving celebration around Black Friday. They decide to go to bed really early on Thanksgiving or perhaps pull the all-nighter in order to catch all the best deals early the next day. And they carry around this consciousness and expectation with them throughout Thanksgiving Day. I wonder if they’re robbed of the proper shalom of Thanksgiving by constantly thinking about the rush of shopping the next day. If I spent my whole life looking forward to my existence in the New Jerusalem, I would be missing the shalom that God brings me in the here-and-now; missing countless opportunities to celebrate in the present for the sake of a future celebration.
I think we do ourselves a great disservice by looking forward to Christmas at 3 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. A much truer rhythm to me, one that more accurately reflects my proper eternal timeline, is one in which I’m fully able to rest in the gratitude and reflection of Thanksgiving by sleeping in, and then wake up fully rested to the anticipation of the coming Christmas season. In this way, my anticipation is built on a foundation of patience, much as our God longs for us to anticipate eternal life with him, but to patiently endure the trials of this life for the sake of his redemptive plan in our lives and in the world. So that’s what I did. And I absolutely loved it.
May you anticipate the coming of the Christmas season in peace, looking to symbolize the material and relational abundance of heaven in a way that brings freedom to you and your family. Because there are forces that long to leverage your eternal longings to seduce you into spending and stressing beyond your means, thus forfeiting the freedom God intended for you in this season. May you declare this holiday season a Season of Freedom, and choose to enjoy the season like you’ve never been experienced before.
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