Ministers Blogs
“Black Friday”
Black Friday has changed through the years. Today Black Friday is known as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season when the retailers mark down their goods and bribe people with “good” sales. Going to the department stores is like risking your life; people cutting people off on the highway, people not yielding to pedestrians, driving the wrong way, people stopping in traffic, and that is before you get into the store. I have joked that to go into a department store this time of year one needs a “Hummer” with machine guns and bazookas, just to get in the parking lot. Then you would need full body armor just to go into the store. This all sounds funny until we hear someone getting trampled and killed because of the mad dash to go shopping. Black Friday has definitely changed over the years.
It would do all of us good to reflect on the first “Black Friday” that took places over 2,000 years ago on a hill called Golgotha. This Black Friday is when Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins, so He could offer salvation to all people. Isaiah 53:4-12 prophesied that “Black Friday” this way:
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
We read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that this event took place just as Isaiah predicted. Although this “Black Friday” ended in the death of our Savior, the good news is that three days later Christ arose from the grave and ascended into Heaven, where He lives today! As one author put it, “There is only one Black Friday which offers eternal savings.”
Jesus will save and give eternal life to those who accept His offer on His terms: place your faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). He will continually cleanse the sins of those who continue to walk in the light of His word (1 John 1:7).
Now, this is “savings” which is really worth going after!
By Mark T. Tonkery
