Sermons 

How to celebrate Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday on the same day

 

black-friday-signToday, hordes of turkey-stuffed shoppers in America will flood the stores in the early morning hours of what’s commonly called “Black Friday.” How did this day come to be known as “Black Friday?” History Channel’s story about its origin makes the most sense.

Back in the 1950s, police in the city of Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving, when hordes of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded into the city in advance of the big Army-Navy football game held on that Saturday every year…

By 1961, “Black Friday” had caught on in Philadelphia, to the extent that the city’s merchants and boosters tried unsuccessfully to change it to “Big Friday” in order to remove the negative connotations. The term didn’t spread to the rest of the country until much later, however, and as recently as 1985 it wasn’t in common use nationwide. Sometime in the late 1980s, however, retailers found a way to reinvent Black Friday and turn it into something that reflected positively, rather than negatively, on them and their customers. The result was the “red to black” concept of the holiday mentioned earlier, and the notion that the day after Thanksgiving marked the occasion when America’s stores finally turned a profit.

But there’s a way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday on the same day. A celebration much more sane – even edifying and nourishing – than all the crazy eating and drinking and shopping.

How? Go to a faithful church on Thanksgiving Day, where the true gospel is preached. What is this true gospel? It is the perfect life, sacrificial death and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. On a dark Black Friday afternoon, he offered his life as a ransom for all who would believe in him as Savior and Lord.

And as traditional, on these churches, the Lord’s Supper is rightly administered. What is the Lord’s Supper? It is a sign and seal of Christ’s body offered and broken on the cross and His blood shed on that Black Friday, for all who believe.

Better yet, make every Sunday a Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day by faithfully attending the Lord’s Day worship services. On these holy days, you’ll commemorate Christ’s death, and praise and thank God for his inestimable gift of his Son.

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