The new Microsoft X-Box 360 retails for around $400. Two days after the game system was released, it was selling on eBay for around $1200. My first car cost less.

This morning's New York Times reports that the country's biggest cable companies will introduce family-friendly packages as early as the first quarter of next year. The move is intended to head off pending legislation that might obligate them to block offensive programming or sell channels on an individual basis. I've long wondered why you can't buy a single channel; the companies argue that packages make niche channels possible, as the popular programs pay for the less popular. Family advocates argue that the companies cannot be trusted to determine "family friendly" programming.

Meanwhile the Science section of today's Times tells us about technology of a different kind. Perhaps you've seen footage or pictures of the narwhal, a whale whose tusk can grow to nine feet long. Marine biologists have speculated that the tusk is used to break ice, spear fish, pierce ships, transmit sound, shed excess body heat, woo females, etc. Recent tests have revealed its real purpose: the tusk contains 10 million nerve endings, making it one of the most sensitive sensory organs known to biology. I wonder how well it receives television transmissions. Or plays video games.

I don't know about you, but my tusk works just fine, unfortunately. Even if cable companies try harder to make their programming more ethical, that leaves unchanged most of the 25,000 media images I'll receive today. "Holiday" trees are replacing "Christmas" decorations at more and more stores. Television commercials insist that I don't really love my wife unless I buy her a diamond this year. And retailers know that "sex sells," whether they're advertising SUVs or beer.

The world was this way even before the electronic revolution. Paul warned us, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth…Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:1, 5). The answer is not to retreat from the world, but to love Jesus more than we love the world. The reason I have never had an affair is not that I don't know any women besides Janet--it's that I love her too much to consider such a thing. If the same were always true of my love for Jesus, the world would be far less with me.

Let's remember that Christmas is a birthday party, and that it's not ours. The only present the Baby doesn't yet own is your love. Have you given your gift today?

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