I write to you on Saturday, November 25, 2006 — the day after “Black Friday,” the busiest shopping day of the year. Yesterday, more than 70 million Americans went to the mall. Some outlets were open at midnight to accommodate the crowds. Last evening I heard on the news that each consuming American will spend, on average, $790 this Christmas season. Approximately half of the total will be spent on “Black Friday” — approximately $9 billion overall, on one swirling shopping day.
You are reading these lines, of course, in January. Christmas is over — the shopping, wrapping, gifting and receiving part, at least. If you are an average American, you will have spent hundreds of dollars by now. You will have jacked up your credit card balance. You will have gained a few pounds, collected a few presents-to-exchange, maybe heard something from Handel, maybe gone again to church.
The experience brings a verse comes to mind. “Immediately [Jesus] made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side” (Mark 6:45).
This strange little verse comes just on the heels of the busiest consumer day in Jesus’ brief ministry on earth. Jesus himself was at the center of it: collecting gifts, conducting a little program, and then distributing (what turned out to be) mountains of gifts among his friends and followers. In the process he hosted a meal much larger than he was used to. We call the episode “The Feeding of the Five Thousand.”
Let me tell you: the experience left Jesus’ followers truly jazzed. The Gospel of John reports that they were bent upon making him King, right there on the spot (6:15). He would have been a wonderful, Consumer-Friendly King. He was so impressive — just the sort of King you might like to follow. He would feed you. He would entertain you. But this was not the sort of King he would be.
Mark 6:45 begins with a sense of intensity and urgency. “Immediately,” we read, Jesus “made” his disciples get into the boat. Other translations report that Jesus “insisted” (The Message). Others say that he “constrained” the disciples (KJV). All of them agree that Jesus addressed the disciples “immediately”. The consuming crowd was after them! They must “get into the boat” and cross the Sea of Galilee to the other side. Now!
And what awaited them there? On the other side of Galilee awaited the cross.
There was very much at stake, you see, there on the far shore on the busiest consumer day of the year. Would the crowds make Jesus what they wanted him to be? Or would Jesus make his way to other side of Galilee, and the road to Calvary? No wonder the disciples needed some compelling.
The season of Christmas, I think, presents us with the same kind of crisis. Once again (in America, at least), we are presented with the ultimate Consumer-Friendly Season — and a Consumer-Friendly King. He is made out to be just the sort of fellow we might like to follow. Jesus and Santa Claus, new clothes and new toys — even in January, we are still aglow with the possibilities. But Jesus of Nazareth will compel us to something more. He will urge us to follow immediately. Another shore of sacrifice and mission awaits us.
It is January. It is time to get into the boat.