Lent Day 23
Sacrifice is a tough idea. You can sacrifice your body to be a professional athlete, you can sacrifice your money for a noble cause, you can sacrifice your morals for a job promotion, and you can sacrifice your life to save someone else. Sacrifice is a part of life, and it requires us to weigh the cost.
The Bible talks a lot about sacrifice. The sacrifice of animals on the altar represented the brokenness of sin in our world and how it had to be atoned. Philippians uses the idea of sacrifice when Jesus “made himself nothing” just to walk among us as a human.
But these sacrifices just point to a bigger sacrifice. They point to a once and for all sacrifice that would render all other sacrifices futile. In Matthew 13 Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a man finding a treasure and a merchant finding a pearl. They sell everything they have for the treasure.
I used to think that these parables were just about us finding God and then giving up everything for Him, but I think there’s a dual meaning. I think that Jesus was showing us that he was giving up everything for us. The beauty of the Gospel is not that we gave up everything for God, but that he sacrificed for us.
Maybe today you can think about how God sees you as a treasure. You can dwell on how God stepped out of heaven to look for you. You can rest in knowing that Jesus’ sacrifice was so that he could be with you.