“Create Your Own MAGICAL CHRISTMAS with over 4,000 dollar-stretching holiday favorites!”

That’s what one of the four catalogs that appeared in my mailbox today is telling me.  Yes, it’s that time of the year again.  Time for the excesses of greed and materialism to captivate us.  Time for us to teach our children that Jesus is only a little important, but a tree, Santa, and a dozen gifts that they have to have are very important.  Time for most Americans to go into credit card debt buying obligatory sacrifices for people they don’t even like.  Time for Christmas 2008.

Mr. C.S. Lewis sees it this way in God in the Dock:  “It is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and so great things in honor of a god they do not believe in.”

Do we believe?  I think if we did we might conduct things differently.  2008 or so years ago, a little baby was born in a dirty stable.  Nothing was sanitized, there was blood everywhere, and there was no doctor to help.  No mom or dad around to support mom and dad.  Some time later, after Jesus was swaddled to sleep, he was brought lavish gifts by three men who recognized who he was:  God here to live with us.

From this humble story comes our supposed “celebration” of Christmas:  We give gifts to one another in honor of the act of the three wise men.  B, U, and double hockey sticks.  Bah humbug!!!

For years in our household, we’ve taken a different approach to Christmas.  We’ve made it a goal to spend as much or more on others that we don’t know than we do on our family.   Some years this means giving a wad of cash to a local family in need.  Several years we’ve bought livestock and lanterns and Bibles for missionaries in India.  Last year we used our Christmas money to pay for a kid in Asia to get cleft pallet surgery through Operation Smile.  We present these opportunities to our 3 kids in the true Spirit of Christmas, showing them pictures and movies, praying together as we give.

There is a tremendous blessing in “defying the king”, as Daniel did, and embracing the heart of God.  The king being the spirit of the age that shackles us in materialism and greed.  The blessing being a true and simple devotion to God as we celebrate the birth of Christ.  To the church, my encouragement this Christmas season is to enjoy your family, but to also remember the poor – to shun materialism, the mall, and the money – and embrace His message, His mercy, and His merry mass among us!

Will you take this challenge – to have a BACKWARDS CHRISTMAS?