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.

Dave spoke tonight from Romans 5:6-11, reminding us of the fundamental gospel truth that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. People may sometimes be willing to die for a cause or even for a good person (bodyguards often put their lives on the line to protect someone; a parent will often be willing to die to save their child), but to die for an enemy is very unlikely. Yet we were enemies of God because of our disobedience and He could easily have given up on us. Instead, He chose to send His Son, Jesus, to die for us, because God wanted us to be restored to the place and condition He had first created.

Adam was created perfect and lived in perfect relationship with God, but he chose to disobey God and we now all have inherited that sinful tendency. All of us have sinned, but God has paid the wages of death which sin demands (see Rom 3:23, Rom 6:23). Christmas and Easter are rightly the high points of the Christian calendar because they show us God’s plan of salvation in sending a sinless man to be our Sviour. The selfless sacrifice of Jesus at Golgotha was sufficient to pay the price for sin, a fact we know because God demonstrated His acceptance through the resurrection of Jesus.

We must decide what to do with this good news. God wants us to accept that we are sinners, repent of our sin and recognised we need the salvation He offers us through Christ. When we do this and turn our lives over to Jesus, then we are born again and restored to a relationship with God.