Sacrifice

Many people give up something for Lent. Some won’t eat meat on Fridays. Others give up chocolate. Some stop drinking alcohol or soft drinks. Others pledge extra money to the church that would have otherwise been spent on some form of entertainment.

Why give up something during Lent? It is a way to show respect for Jesus, who sacrificed Himself on our behalf. Jesus is the Son of God; He deserves to be honored as the King of the universe. Yet Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested on false charges. He subjected Himself to slander, humiliation, assault, and a verdict of death, none of which He deserved. He died slowly and painfully, stripped of dignity and bereft of compassion. He endured it all for us. Such a powerful display of love calls for some kind of response.

During Lent, some deny themselves in order to feel closer to Jesus. While no one can really understand the hell Jesus went through on Good Friday, we want to share in His sufferings—it’s what friends do. We honor Jesus’ sacrifice by giving up something that we enjoy; it helps us relate to His suffering. Such behavior is appropriate because Jesus said, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24).

Others give up something for Lent as a way to show Jesus their gratitude. The Lord gave up His dignity, His comfort and His very life, all so that we can be saved from sin, death and hell. Such a gift deserves some kind of thank you. That’s why followers of Jesus give up something that feels good during Lent; it’s their way of saying, ‘Lord, You sacrificed so much for me; now I’m going to give this up for You, to show my gratitude."

A third reason for denying yourself pleasure during Lent has to do with avoiding distractions. Before Jesus went to the cross, He prepared Himself with an evening of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane; Satan was going to attack Him viciously over the next 24 hours, and Jesus wanted prepare Himself. Many Christians use Lent as a time to take a good, hard look at themselves—their failures and their weaknesses. It’s a time for reflecting on the important things in life—we don’t want to be distracted by trivial stuff. And so we give up those pleasures that keep us looking in the wrong direction—towards ourselves in the mirror, instead of towards Jesus on the cross.

You don’t hear much about sacrifices any more. Maybe you’ve seen King Kong, where villagers capture an American girl and offer her to the huge gorilla that they fear. What they were doing was offering a sacrifice; they were giving away something precious—a human life—in order to keep the angry monster happy, so it would leave them alone.

For thousands of years, people have offered sacrifices. The world can be a scary place to live in—you never know when violent weather will destroy your home, drought will take the harvest, or disease will thin the herd. Until recently, childbirth was dangerous for both mother and baby, and infant mortality rates were high—many kids never reached adulthood. People did not have hospitals or insurance plans to help them get through a crisis. So they turned to any number of different religions—they prayed to the sun in the sky for light, they asked the water spirits for rain, they pleaded with the goddess of fertility for many healthy children. They needed supernatural help desperately, so they wanted to keep these powerful beings happy. As a result, they offered sacrifices. The first cuttings of the harvest were burned on an altar as a gift to the goddess of the fields. And a couples’ first-born child might be burned on an altar as a gift to the being who controlled life and death. People gave up something precious, hoping that in return good spirits would bless them and evil spirits would leave them alone.

Of course, there is only one God—the God who created Adam and Eve, and promised them a Savior who would come to free us from sin, defend us from Satan, and raise us from death. All those sacrifices made to other gods and spirits were simply a waste that accomplished nothing at all. But the sacrifice made to our God is different.

When we break God’s laws, we incur a penalty—death, followed by punishment in hell. And we’re all guilty—Scripture says, all have sinned and fall short of God’s righteous standard (Romans 3:23). By sinning, we have earned God’s terrible punishment. Thankfully, He has arranged a way for us to dodge the bullet—we can escape the consequences of our bad behavior through a sacrifice. On the cross, God’s own Son endured the punishment incurred by our lawbreaking. He was a sacrifice of incalculable worth, so valuable that His suffering and death paid the penalty for every human sin. The death of Christ on Good Friday is the only sacrifice you’ll ever need to be sure of God’s love for you.

When Jesus died on the cross, He atoned for our sins. ‘Atoned’ means that He paid the penalty we deserved for breaking God’s law.

Breaking God’s Law is a big deal. God designed the world to be perfect—everything in balance, everyone living together in harmony. But mankind messed it all up. God’s law says that we are to love Him and each other; instead, we let greed and pride and anger rule our hearts. We don’t love as we should, and the result is crime and war, abortion and divorce, poverty and waste.

Our disobedience hurts our fellow man, the environment, and us. Our sin causes pain and disappointment and fear. No wonder, then, that God punishes those who break His laws. But God still loves us, despite our faults—that’s why He sent His Son to suffer in our place, to atone for our sins. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are spared God’s terrible anger.

Jesus suffered and died as our substitute. Isaiah says, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). But why did Jesus have to die? Was there no other way to settle the account?

We don’t like the sight of blood. It makes us squeamish. But blood is very important. God says, the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life (Leviticus 17:11). The penalty for breaking God’s law is death, the loss of your lifeblood. That’s why Jesus had to bleed and die; He gave His life so ours could be spared.

This is why we talk about Jesus’ blood being shed for us on the cross. His blood is a gift of life for everyone dying under the curse of sin. God’s word says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Jesus had to die so we can receive God’s pardon for our sins. Hell is too terrible to think about; that’s why we ought to be grateful that Jesus suffered in our place. He loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

Jesus died to redeem us. ‘Redeem’ means to buy back. Picture it this way. There was a boy who spent weeks building a model ship. It was the kind that has sails and rigging, all sorts of tiny knots and little pulleys. It was a complicated model, but the boy was careful and took his time—in the end, he had a ship to be proud of.

Excited with the results, the boy took his ship to the city park. He wanted to float it in the water outside, so he could take some authentic looking pictures. But as he was lining up the camera, the wind picked up and his ship sailed away. Before he could catch up, it was lost to sight.

A few weeks later, the boy was walking by a pawnshop downtown when he saw something amazing—there was his model ship in the window! He had done a good job building her; the asking price was steep. So the boy hurried home and scraped together all the money he had. Then he returned to the pawnshop and bought back the ship that really belonged to him.

That boy loved his model ship—loved it so much that he not only built it carefully, but He paid for it a second time in order to get it back. So it is with Jesus. We are precious to Him—He designed our bodies and He filled us with life. But we sailed away; we let the winds of life blow us wherever they wanted. We ended up in Satan’s pawnshop, alone and unloved. But then Jesus came along and bought us back. He spent everything He had—He gave up His life in order to make us His. He redeemed us from the devil’s control at the cost of His own life. That’s how much He loves us.

Or think of it this way. We are God’s children, but we didn’t like His rules so we ran away from home. Satan kidnapped us and refused to let us go. So Jesus offered Himself to the devil in exchange for our freedom—and Satan used that opportunity to have Jesus arrested, insulted, beaten, ridiculed, and put to death. Jesus knew perfectly well what He was getting into, but He swapped places with us anyway—He was willing to do anything to get us out of Satan’s clutches. Jesus paid your ransom price; how are you using the freedom that He paid so dearly to give you?