The daily sacrifice

When I was in Israel a few years back I visited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. And although I had visited Holocaust Museums here in the states, nothing prepared me for what I was about to experience. It didn’t just focus on the Holocaust but on the persecution that the Jews have experienced since the beginning of time, including “Christian” nations who had once invited them in only, in the next breath, to persecute them, forcing them out of their country.

When I stepped out of the museum, I immediately looked for our Israeli guide. First to apologize for the sins of “my people” and then to ask what life was like now for the Jews. He told me that not much had changed. “We are always on alert, never feeling completely safe. We have little trust in other people.”

This week I read an essay by Dennis Praeger about God’s testing of Abraham’s faith. He wrote, “The test was performed to teach the rest of us about the nature of faith - that it requires something of us; and to teach us that God does not want human sacrifice. But short of that, true religion does demand some sacrifice.” Something the Jews are far too familiar with. In fact, at a recent conference, Dennis told of meeting a woman who’s husband had denounced his Jewish heritage in order to protect his children.

I’ve spent the last few days thinking about sacrifice and my life as a Christian. Asking myself, “What has it cost me to be a follower of Jesus?” All I could come up with was, nothing. I experience no fear or concern in going to church, worshiping God, or serving him. I’m not looking to be a martyr here, but something about this just hasn’t sat right with me. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more shallow I have felt.

Jesus, in a way, spoiled me by dying on the cross for my sins. He took the punishment for them which, of course, I am overwhelmingly grateful for, but, at the same time, it leaves me feeling lazy.

I keep thinking about the word, sacrifice. It’s big in the Old Testament and even bigger in the New Testament. But with Jesus being the ultimate sacrifice, where does that leave me? What is my sacrifice?

Scripture talks about the sacrifice of praise and our bodies to be a living sacrifice. But when I praise God, even in moments when I don’t feel like praising him, it seems more of a choice to still praise him rather than a sacrifice.

But then it hits me. A sacrifice that I do make on, pretty much, a daily basis.

As I write this I’m sitting next to Eva in the hospital and I realize the painful, gut wrenching sacrifice I have made for the past four years and continue to make. And that’s the sacrifice of expectation. And, to be honest, the sacrifice of hope. The expectation and the hope that God will heal her. Heal her completely. So that she can live a full and exciting life as a teenager, growing up with her family and giggling with her girlfriends. Going on dates. Getting in trouble.

And I’m gutted. Because I don’t want to sacrifice that expectation. Or that hope. I want to hold on to it. I want to keep expecting that God will do a miracle in her. But as I watch her breathe with the support of oxygen through her trachea, I’m kneeling at the altar of God, giving him my hope and my expectations. For Eva. For my brother. For many others for whom I so desperately want to see set free from sickness and pain and brokenness.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Whether Jew or Christian, that cross is our sacrifice, the price we pay for being called one of his own. The sacrifice, for me, being to choose to follow Jesus, living in the uncertainty of God. A sacrifice to trust in Him, believe in Him, love him, both in my mind and in my heart, while fully living in the muck of doubt and heart-breaking disappointment.

A tough way to live but what choice do I have. Because to quote Peter, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

So, today, once again, I bring my sacrifice to God. Followed by, yep, my sacrifice of praise.