OFFER OF ETERNAL SALVATION:ONLY ONE BLACK FRIDAY (AND BLACK SATURDAY).

Only one Black Friday and Saturday offers eternal savings beyond the high season of consumerism. The days were not for sale or self-oriented consumers, bumping, climbing, pushing, and screaming over one another. It was not the day after any holiday or Thanksgiving. The event of the one Black Friday was at a place of profound significance, known as ‘The Skull.’ This was where the soldiers, in a cruel act, nailed Jesus to the cross. They also nailed the criminals to crosses beside Jesus – one on the right and the other on the left. The only Black Friday and Saturday was not about buying and selling; all the High streets were closed because all the events of the one Black Friday were on a hill of death. On the only one Black Friday and Saturday, the world went dark and became ignorant. Hence, Jesus prayed on the only one Black Friday, ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.’ On the only one Black Friday and Saturday, death was offered, and the grave was opened so new life could be given for the remission of our sins.

Good Friday, the only one Black Friday, stands in stark contrast to the world’s shopping list of consumption and greed. It points us to the Saviour Jesus Christ, the main figure and focus of the only one Black Friday. He redeems our pagan world and turns us ‘from idols to serve the living and true God’ 1 Thess 1:9. In a culture sliding toward secularism, the only one Black Friday, Good Friday, remains the main annual moment spiritually and ‘so deeply entrenched in our traditions and economy that with joyful, inextricable stubbornness you sing forth the gospel in the most God-forgetting places — like shopping malls.’ The reflection is that we should take a cue from the event at the place of ‘The Skull’ and the seven words of Jesus on the cross and think of ways we can make the only one Black Friday and Saturday serve the cause of Jesus Christ and his Second Coming.

The whole point of the only one Black Friday and Saturday is to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. The same Jesus Christ who speaks to us in today’s passage is telling and praying for us to the Father through his seven words on the cross to forgive us for our ignorance and for turning and redefining the only one Black Friday in a consumer shopping frenzy.

Prayer: Let us give thanks to God for the reawakening to prepare for the return of Christ