So the other day, I went to the mall to get my present for our Giving Tree kid.  This was last Saturday.  It was like 33 degrees and raining.  When we got to Kenwood, there was not a single place to park.  The whole lot was full.  I ended up parking about 1 mile from the mall and walking, in the rain.  So obviously, once inside, it was wall to wall people, and there was Christmas stuff everywhere!  Santa was already set up in the food court.  It was November 18th!  I couldn't believe it.  I was walking next to a family and I heard a guy say, "So we're in a recession?  Economy is bad?  Doesn't look like it here."  That got me thinking.  What does it mean to have a bad economy.  At Kenwood, maybe the clientele is recession proof.  Or maybe they feel like they have to be, and then use credit.  Either way, Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier every year.  It's a huge money boom for all retailers.  I read somewhere that America spends $450 billion dollars a year on Christmas.  That's $450,000,000,000.  That's a lot of zeros.  And let's think about what that money is spent on.  My granddad used to go into Sharper Image and buy me some random electronic device, like an alarm clock/toaster that projects the time on the ceiling.  Most years I get 4-5 more Jaguar shirts, and Jaguar flags, and calendars.  I honestly cannot remember more than about 3 things I got for Christmas.

Can you imagine what kind of good  could be done with all that money?  We built a well in Kenya, that provided clean drinking water for an entire village for $3300.  That's 136,363,636 wells, per Christmas.  Basically you do that once, and the entire world has drinking water.  Malaria kills thousands of people in Africa every year.  To help prevent this a simple $10 mosquito net almost the problem.  The math is really easy on this one, 45,000,000,000 mosquito nets.  We live in the richest country in the world.  Because of that, we can make the biggest impact on others that really need it.  If we start to think about life in an eternal sort of way, we'll look for ways to make a difference in people's lives, not fill our houses with useless crap that doesn't matter. 

After all, Christmas is the celebration of the greatest, eternal gift, ever.  We humans screwed up.  We ruined our perfect existence with God.  We could have lived in total communion with God.  Sin entered the picture.  Our relationship with God was ripped clean in half.  It hurt God, it hurt mankind.  God wanted to give man a way back to him.  That's where Leviticus and Numbers comes in.  Boring sure, but it should give us as Christians an amazing understanding of what it should actually take to get close to God.  Try reading Leviticus with the eyes that it is what you had to do at church on Sunday, or all the time, 24/7.   The people tried to follow these rules, but man, it was really hard.  They couldn't do it all the time.  Sometimes they flat ignored God.  God, not happy, let his people get wooped and carried away.  Things were really bad.  Dark.  It seemed like God had took His face from his people.  And this is where Christmas come in.  God finally decided that enough was enough.  Into this dark moment, God sent His Light.  Christmas is the celebration of a healed relationship.  It's the start of the greatest gift ever.  That baby, which was completely helpless, [Something that had never truly registered until now what that really meant.  Unlimited power, created the world, can do everything possible, not only takes the flawed earthly form of a human, but came as a baby, completely helpless, dependent on a human for His survival.  Unfathomable.], eventually grew and became the ultimate sacrifice that ended the need for Leviticus.  Now it's the symbol that should remind us of that sacrifice, and that we can't do it without Jesus.  

So this year, why don't we stop being a part of the Christmas money making machine, giving money to companies, and let's make a true difference.  Let's give to people who need basics, instead of buying mom some smelly thing from Bath and Body Works, cause we can't think of anything else to get her.

Thanks for reading.

For more info on how we can use this holiday to make a huge difference in the world, visit www.adventconspiracy.com.  Also check out www.rethinkingchristmas.com.