Romans 3:23-25 English Standard Version
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Justification is a bookkeeping term, going from the red into the black. Jesus put us in the black, having paid our debt. Given that retailers are hoping for holiday sales to pull them out of the red and put them in the black on their balance sheets it is understandable why Black Friday became what it has become. That however is not how the term came into existence.
“The first recorded use of the term “Black Friday” was applied not to post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping but to financial crisis: specifically, the crash of the U.S. gold market on September 24, 1869. Two notoriously ruthless Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, worked together to buy up as much as they could of the nation’s gold, hoping to drive the price sky-high and sell it for astonishing profits. On that Friday in September, the conspiracy finally unraveled, sending the stock market into free-fall and bankrupting everyone from Wall Street barons to farmers.” Source history.com
At this time of year there are traditions that are held which may have such a long standing history that the original meaning has been lost. The term Black Friday serves to remind us that external interests often have long standing influences over our traditions and origins can be easily forgotten.
It falls on each of us to understand what we celebrate and why we celebrate in order for it to be meaningful. If it is to honor mother and father, fine, but do we understand how their traditions came into existence?