Last week marked a transition on our calendars. We celebrated Thanksgiving, stuffed ourselves with good food, gained 10 pounds and now we try to lose the weight before Christmas arrives and we stuff ourselves again. Believe me folks, I’m speaking from experience, what you gain in two days takes two months to get rid of.
Last Friday retailers hosted what is called Black Friday and the mad rush of the commercial Christmas season gets into full swing. I read one article that explained, “Black Friday” gets its name from the hope that on that day merchants’ financial statements will move out of the red and into the black. The traditional start to the holiday shopping season generates as much as 48 percent of annual revenues and nearly all the year’s profits for key gifts destinations such as toys stores and apparel chains.
To generate those sales many retailers opened their doors at midnight and some very eager consumers even camped out in the parking lot to get the best early bird specials. Maybe even some of you went shopping alone with millions of others.
It was reported that by all initial indications, Black Friday was a busy and successful day. Retail stores took in billions of dollars Friday. It was reported that sales from a major retail store in Lawton was up 6.3 percent.
But folks, I want you to remember as we go through this transition (a short four weeks) from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Christmas is not about the gifts. It’s about Jesus Christ. Some will get so involved to the point where Jesus is largely unseen. To celebrate Christmas without Jesus is like celebrating a birthday without the guest of honor present. No one would think of doing that, so WHY is it that it can be so easy sometimes to get caught up in spirit of the season without Him. Christmas is precisely about the birth of the Savior – our Savior – and we must always keep Jesus before us in this season. We need to see Jesus for who He really is and when we do that we savor Him. That is, we delight in Him as our Savior. There is no more important issues than seeing Jesus or who He really is and savoring what we see above all else. To savor is to take in and thoroughly enjoy. We are called to do just that with Jesus. We are not to admire Jesus from afar but actually SAVOR (and thoroughly enjoy) Him and all his wonderful benefits in our lives. And to do this, we need to be able to see and personally appreciate just WHO Jesus is and WHAT he has done for us.
We need to remember, He went to the cross on Mt. Calvary and paid a debt for us. A debt we could not pay, He paid it for us so we could have the opportunity to spend eternity in heaven with Him. So as we prepare to celebrate His birth, remember it’s not about the gifts, it’s all about our Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord of Lord’s, King of Kings and the only way to Salvation. Keep Him in your life everyday.