Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.  Jacob [James] 1:17, TLV

Are We Buying Awe?   Guess what I heard yesterday on the radio? That we are entering Black Friday Week. Week? Really, it may as well be month with all the ads popping up. Initially, Black Friday was a colloquial term for the Friday following Thanksgiving in the United States. Traditionally, it marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. Many stores offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices and often open very early, sometimes as early as midnight or even on Thanksgiving.

Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year. It is called Black Friday because many retailers were “in the red” financially, and that one day brought their ledgers back in the black.

We have built a whole retail infrastructure around a holiday that was meant to celebrate “the Word made flesh” (John 1:14). The Son of God left the majesty of heaven and His Father’s side to be born of a virgin (Luke 1:34). Whose bed was a feeding manger because there was no room in the inn (Luke 2:6-7).

And let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (vs. 4, TLV)

The moment our daughter was born, we wanted to give her whatever she needed — and whatever petitions she laid before us. The early years we lived humbly as a military family and were one of those who visited K-Mart for Blue-Light Specials at midnight Christmas Eve. We couldn’t wait to see her awe and wonder when those gifts magically appeared that Christmas morning.

A manger scene was set under our small tree, but the story that represented was soon dwarfed by the gifts and wrappings. Were we attempting to mimic the awe and wonder of the Savior’s birth with things?

And when the angels departed from them into the heavens, the shepherds were saying to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which ADONAI has made known to us!” (Luke 2:15, TLV)

There was no mistake that Jesus was born in a humble surrounding. No mistake that Miriam — His mother — wrapped Him in strips of linen rather than a fine cloak. No midwife or doula or nanny. Or that the little family’s first guests were shepherds — fresh from the fields, unwashed. No gifts (the magi came later according to Matthew 2:1-12). Only adoration.

So what am I saying? I’m not sure, except we have built a holiday on a shaky foundation of temporal things. Jobs, fiscal viability, and genius marketing control our way of thinking. Envy, rejection, and an overall lack of stewardship happen because there’s just too much stuff. That Santa only visits the wealthy. And GOD’s gifts of imagination and creativity have been wrongfully used by humanity to manipulate us. Because can true awe be purchased?

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, just as they had been told. (Luke 2:20, TLV)

As we begin Black Friday Week and stand in lines in stores — or order online — perhaps we can ask the LORD if the world’s manipulation of our emotions and worth affects our desire to create a false sense of awe. Maybe, He can show us a new way to find the “Perfect Gift” in our heart, then model it for our family and loved ones. That our awe and wonder could still center on that night in Bethlehem. Just something to think about.

Shabbat shalom.