Embracing Sacrifice
Have you ever taken on a Word of the Year? It is where you ask God to reveal what He might want you to learn or focus on for the next twelve months. The leaders in the Women’s Ministry have been encouraged to do this for years and I took part in this activity. While other women around me said their word was “joy” or “peace” or even “deeper”, I felt God leading me to the word “sacrifice”. Who gets this word? It shouldn’t have been a surprise since the word I was being released from was ‘surrender’. I hoped for a reprieve from such intense words and longed for a word like ‘joy’.
I wanted to run and hide from the word ‘sacrifice’. My first thought was that I was going to have to sacrifice something. When the fear of sacrificing something begins to knock on our door, we immediately make a mental list of all the people and things we treasure, and which one of them might leave our grasp. We quickly consider what life will be like without that person or thing. We begin to mourn before we even know if the loss will become a reality. And so, we land, living in fear. It was with fear that I entered the journey of discovery about sacrifice, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop and loss to impact my life.
Defining Sacrifice
Merriam-Webster Dictionary has several definitions for sacrifice. The definition I believe most people think of first is “to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end.” If we were honest, we stop after the first three words of that definition; “to suffer loss.” Yet, there are more definitions. If you are into baseball, you will recognize this definition: “to advance (a base runner) by means of a sacrifice bunt.” Sacrifice is also defined as “an act of offering to a deity something precious” and “destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.”1
All these definitions give an understanding of what it means to sacrifice. It was the last definition that captured my attention. The surrender of something for the sake of something else.
Jesus’ Sacrifice
As I write this it is just a few weeks until Easter (or Resurrection Sunday). It is the season in the Church calendar when we remember the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. There are a few verses that come to mind when considering the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
Consider what Jesus left to come to earth. The Bible tells us that He was with God and was God (John 1). This means that Jesus left the presence of God to come to the earth He was active in creating. Take a moment to consider what it would be like if you used LEGOs to create a scene and then transported yourself into that scene. I would not want to leave the comforts of my home, with electricity, good food, and the people I love to go into the LEGO scene I created with its sharp edges and block people. Yet, Jesus left the luxury of Heaven to come to the world He created which was no longer perfect as He had created it, instead, it is inflected with sin and broken. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” Jesus gave up all so that we might have access to God through Him.
Why would Jesus do this? Hebrews 12:2 says, “... looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus saw a joy that was beyond the cross. Let’s be clear, He understood the betrayal, abandonment, humiliation, and pain the cross would bring. He saw pass that to a joy. Some scholars say that joy was this position in heaven, as this verse says. Others say the joy He saw was salvation and reconciliation of those who would put their trust in Him. He willingly gave His life for the people He loved (John 10:10-11).
In John 15:13, while teaching the disciples after the Last Supper, Jesus says this, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” These are some of Jesus’ final words to His friends before He is betrayed, arrested, jailed, tried, beaten, and eventually hung on a cross to die. In this verse, Jesus says the optimal expression of love is sacrifice; the surrender of something (His life) for the sake of something else (His friends). It was a great gift and the ultimate sacrifice.
A Call to Sacrifice
Yet, Jesus calls His followers to the same sacrifice in Matthew 16:24-25, which says, “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” Often when people around me reference this verse, they comment on a difficult person or situation and flippantly say, “It’s just my cross to bear. Sigh.”
When Jesus told His disciples to take up their cross, they immediately thought of the Roman's means of capital punishment. People who had broken Roman law and the courts set death as their punishment, were required to carry their element of death, the cross, to the place where they would be put to death. As the criminal carried his cross to his place of death, anyone who saw him could spit on him, call him names, throw things at him, and even hit him. Everything that the criminal was before his arrest is gone, any prestige, good reputation, and riches. Family and friends would deny knowing him for fear of ending up on a cross next to him or losing their standing in the community. It was a long, agonizing, lonely walk for the person carrying the cross. Which was followed by an equally lonely and painful death.
In Matthew 16, Jesus points those who would follow Him to give up their power, position, prestige, reputation, wealth, friends, family, and their life. This can be a long, lonely, agonizing walk for the follower of Christ.
This is where my two Words of the Year intersect. What Jesus is calling His followers to is total surrender and sacrifice. Giving up all for the sake of following Him. This, my friend, is a high call. It requires total devotion to Jesus that is based on a deep love of Him. This kind of surrender and sacrifice can only be done when one is willing to allow God’s Spirit to work in and through them. It begins when we accept the gift that God offers through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. Willingness to self-sacrifice is developed in the disciplines of being in God’s Word, prayer, and worship. It is shown in generous giving of your time and money for the sake of others. It is shown when you are willing to experience discomfort so that others might experience the great love Jesus died to give us.
How is God calling you to take up your cross and follow Jesus?
FOOTNOTES
1 Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Sacrifice. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved March 2024, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacrifice
