iChristmas

My wife Becca, her mom, and I were all watching the news in Houston on the night of Thanksgiving. One of the biggest stories of the evening news happened to be the lines at stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. These lines began forming days before Thanksgiving so these people could get the “door buster” deals. So our obvious reaction was to go down to Best Buy and see what it was like. To be 100% honest, I was thinking about staying outside for a couple of hours to see if I could get a new laptop for a cheap price, but when we got to the store the scene was worse than I even suspected.

In the parking lot was a make-shift soccer game going on. Then there was a series of families who had small children, even an infant in one case, bearing the cold elements and camping out for who knows how many hours. Most of the ones in the front of the line had to have spent at least the entire day of Thanksgiving there in order to be towards the front of the line. Overall, there were anywhere between 50-75 individuals in line 10 hours before the doors were set to open in 45-50 degree weather mind you.

The news had also reported that some of the malls were not even waiting until the standard 4 or 5 a.m. opening times, and they were going to open the flood gates at 12:00 a.m. As I said, there were some tempting deals for the people who got through the doors first. But as I started to look at the situation with spiritual eyes, I became even more aware how far we have gotten away from the message of the season. Even more than that, there must be something more than a great deal driving people to cut Thanksgiving short (or even out all together in some cases).

In the book of Amos, the prophet has a message for the people from God about their consumption habits. He says: “’In that day,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!’ Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’—skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.” (Amos 8:3-7 NIV)

God is upset with the people of Israel because they cannot even celebrate festivals without salivating at the idea of getting back to the marketplace and ultimately taking advantage of the poor and needy. Sound anything like our culture today? I’ll promise you one thing: there is no way the lines at all of the stores were filled with rich people like the CEOs and the owners of these respective businesses. So we have people waiting for days outside of stores in order to get a good deal, and at times even making their entire family sit on pavement in the freezing cold during a holiday in order to get more items from the “door buster” deals.

Our society thrives on consumerism and “dishonest scales” in the marketplace. On top of that, we have allowed the day after Thanksgiving shopping spree to be a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving itself. How is it that the season of Advent, which symbolizes the coming of our Savior who taught us how to be self-giving people, has turned into the season of iEverything. Apple is genius, to be honest, because they have created a list of products that typifies America. iPod, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and even iLife. Until our souls scream “ENOUGH!” and push back against what we have developed into, the vicious cycle will continue (unless God intervenes as He did in the book of Amos).

My age group is the most entitled generation to walk the face of the earth in a long time, if not in the history of the world. The attitude is more and more pervasive that we “deserve” everything. We deserve a Playstation 3. We deserve a new cell phone. We deserve new clothes. We deserve a holiday. All of this is not contained only to the month of December as it was 20 years ago, but it is common all year around. I deserve new clothes because it’s tax free weekend in Texas. I deserve new skis because it’s winter. I deserve new sunglasses because it’s summer. What is scary is thinking of what we actually do deserve.
This Christmas season (or should I say Holiday Season to be more politically correct), I invite you to join me on a journey to start pushing back against our culture. I invite you to scale back by a fraction this year as a way of creating a starting point. I ask you to question if you truly believe less is more. I encourage you to begin a new tradition that points to the message of the season through our actions, and, in turn, maybe we will find our own salvation.

-Brady Herbert