Armodoxy for Today: Get It?

The Super Bowl is an event unparalleled in the United States. It attracts a wide variety of people to an annual display of athletics and dramatics. Much more than a football game, the Super Bowl has become a phenomenon with its high priced tickets and astronomical advertising fees. Let’s get the statistics out of the way first. This year, the average price of a ticket was $9,000, the stadium was filled with 70,000+ attendees, the cost of advertising was $7,000,000 for 30 seconds (yes, that’s a half-a-minute) of airtime, and an estimated 113,000,000 people viewed the game on TV and live streams.

The theatrics of the Super Bowl is not limited only to the half-time-show. Actors and celebrities are commissioned to sell everything from alcoholic drinks to food products, from invisible wireless services to very visible luxury vehicles. Of course, it’s all calculated on the returns. If an advertiser is going to spend $7Million for 30 seconds, be sure that they’ve calculated the return will be many times over. That’s good business and has been the business of Super Bowl advertising, until this year. The product? Jesus!

A Christian website, He Gets Us, set up a beautifully orchestrated campaign of pictures and sayings of Jesus to bring the point home that He gets us! On a week where Jesus is celebrated by the actions of Vartan and Leon, these commercials made it clear that Jesus is alive and well, and talking to the world today. You know people heard because immediately after the ad aired both sides of the political spectrum – the left and right – criticized the advertising of Jesus in this manner. Yes, just as He did 2000 years ago, so too now, He is shaking up the establishment.

So they spent $20Million on advertising and what was the return? In proclaiming that Jesus “Gets us” the purpose (or the calculated return) is to challenge us to “Get Him!”

This coming Sunday is called the “Day of Good Living” followed by the beginning of Lent on Monday. Lent is about how we “Get Him.” Yes, God understands us. Jesus gets us. The question for us is, do we get Him?

The forty day period of Lent begins with an invitation to “Get Him.” The Armodox practice of abstaining from animal products in our diet, and increasing our time in private prayer and acts of charity sets us on a course to meet the Resurrected Lord, at Easter and to take Him with us into and in our lives. In other words, 40 days of Lent prepares and arms for the 325 days of the year that follow.

Join me on the Lenten Journey beginning this Sunday and continuing every day as a daily message, Armodoxy for Today.

Let us pray, “Lord, I thank you for hearing my prayer and understanding me. As I prepare for the Lenten Season, open my heart to Your love, so that I may grow spiritually, to hear your answers and how Your Word touch my life every day. In Your name, Jesus, I pray. Amen”