Sin offerings in the Old Testament were the way that people dealt with the corrupting and pervasive problem of sin in the human heart. They involved the death of an animal and foreshadowed the death of Jesus Christ as a sin offering for all of humanity. Christ’s death puts us right with God, once and for all, and put an end to all the animal sacrifices that used to be made.

Now, our sacrifices are offered freely with thanksgiving, with acknowledgment of Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Heb 13:15-16 says, ‘Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.’ These are the sacrifices God wants from us today.

1 Cor 5:6-8 reminds us of how a little leaven (yeast) works through the whole dough. Sally Welch takes us into the realm of New Testament cooking, showing us that bread was made by keeping back a small piece of dough from the previous batch, which was left for a few days to ferment and then used as the raising agent in the next batch of baking. Leaven was not necessarily good after a while, however, and so once a year at least, unleavened bread was used to celebrate the Passover (and as a reminder of the haste with which the Israelites had fled Egypt). In this passage, Paul reminds us that we are not to allow any sin to remain in our lives, because it has the potential to infect the whole body. Yet we are well aware that it is impossible for us to deal with sin on our own.

The sacrifice of Christ has dealt with the problem of sin once and for all. Therefore, we can have hope in His cleansing and sacrifice. A life of sacrifice must always start on the foundation of Christ’s sacrifice for sin rather than relying on our own sacrifices.

Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

It’s virtually impossible to look at the topic of sacrifice without looking at Genesis 22, the passage where Abraham is tested by God and asked to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac. Many view this passage with horror: how could God ask Abraham to do such a thing? What kind of God would test someone like this? As always, we have to interpret Scripture through the lens of Scripture, understanding that child sacrifice is something God abhors. But at the same time, this passage, which in many ways prefigures all that God Himself did by sacrificing His Son to save us, reveals to us not only God’s provision and compassion, but the need for us to be willing to lay everything on the altar for Him.

Letting go of even the most precious things is never easy. But it seems Abraham, whose journey of faith has taken many twists and turns over the years (not all of which are to be commended), has reached a place of quiet trust in God. Heb 11:19 tells us that Abraham realised God could bring back even the dead and so he was prepared to do the unthinkable because he knew God could still bring Isaac back. We remember each Easter that God did indeed bring Jesus back from the dead (see Heb 13:20) and understand afresh the sacrifice our Lord made in order to bring us to salvation.

Today’s reading (Matthew 9:9-13) looks at the calling of Matthew (Levi), a tax collector who heeded the call to follow Jesus. As a tax collector, he was despised and disliked; religious people often disliked Jesus because he associated with ‘tax collectors and sinners.’ But Jesus reminded these judgmental people that God desires mercy, not sacrifice (see Hosea 6:6).

Sally Welch tells us, ‘It is easy to slip into what we must do to earn God’s favour, what sacrifice we must make in order to truly follow Christ.’ (‘Sharing The Easter Story’, P 139) We can easily start the Christian journey by faith in God’s grace, but sacrifice often becomes associated with trying to carry on in our own strength. ‘Jesus calls us to be merciful to ourselves and to others – to behave with compassion and forgiveness, tolerance and respect.’ (ibid., P 139) We no longer have to make sacrifices to earn God’s favour, because Christ’s sacrifice on the cross paid for sin once and for all. Therefore, we can focus on mercy today!

Although it’s still March, we took time last night to celebrate the April birthday of a girl who is ‘two, nearly three!’

This week’s Lent theme is ‘sacrificing’. ‘Sacrifice’ is a word laden with preconceived ideas, but it is at the heart of the Christian faith. A sacrificial life, says Sally Welch, ‘is one which offers to God all the trials as well as the joys, all the challenges as well as the triumphs – accepting life in all its fullness and praising God throughout.’ (‘Sharing The Easter Story’, P 133) In today’s passage, Psalm 51, David speaks about the sacrifice of a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. He recognises his own sin and prays for forgiveness and restoration in this psalm, understanding that it is the heart attitude which matters more than outward conformity to religious rituals. Only when the heart is at peace with God can we live the way He wants us to.

This kind of brokenness over our sin and the sin of the world does not appeal to us, naturally speaking. But brokenness is the place where something new can be built up.