"How much crazier can Black Friday get?" is the title of an Associated Press article written by Chris Hawley in which the country's Black Friday news is summarized.
From stampeding customers to robberies, Black Friday reveals the worst in U.S. consumers trying to get the best deals in retail just before Christmas. Retailers advertise in newspapers, on television, radio and internet to lure people to their Black Friday sales, prices only available one day a year.
Locally in Hampton Roads, the only bad news I read about was a stampede of 400 people trying to buy shoes. Good news, especially since the worst part of the incident was a police officer getting pinned behind the doors of the mall. Wonder what was going through his mind when that happened?
Does all of this news merely report what happens when a lot of people are in the same place at the same time?
During Jesus' ministry, he was often followed by hundreds, even thousands of people. In the ESV gospels, there are fifty verses containing the word "crowd" with the name of Jesus.
In Luke 19, we meet Zacchaeus, a vertically-challenged tax-collector. Zacchaeus so desperately wanted to see Jesus pass by that he pepper sprayed twenty people to get to him.
No, that was a woman in a Wal-Mart on Black Friday.
What did Zacchaeus do? He climbed a tree. Jesus had dinner with him that evening.
In three of the gospels, we read about the "woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years." In an act of desperation for healing, she held Jesus up at knife-point and demanded to be healed.
No, that was a Black Friday robbery in California.
The woman "had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased." (Luke 8:43-44)
Mark 8 and Matthew 15 recount the feeding of the multitudes. 4,000-plus showed up to see Jesus.
4,000 people. No stampeding was reported. No injuries, pepper spray, or robberies are mentioned in the gospels. Only 4,000 who wanted to hear Jesus speak and receive healing. Before he departed, Jesus even fed them (and had leftovers).
The best possible Black Friday deal ever would involve getting souls "out of the red and into the black": way, truth and life - free and open to the public. No newspaper or tv or radio advertising. No email marketing. Just word of mouth.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a pair of expensive shoes, or a 40-inch LCD tv. There is certainly nothing wrong with waiting patiently in a line to get a great deal on something you want to purchase.
In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"
James 1:17 tells us, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."
Wanting such things becomes a problem, however, when the desire we have for them becomes bigger than our faith.
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