Love Requires Sacrifice (Luke 18:31-End, 1 Corinthians 13.1-13)
Sacrifice
is a harsh word isn’t it. Just picture that word in your head for a moment.
Sacrifice. It often feels like it should have a prominent full stop after it
doesn’t it? I wonder what kinds of things come into your heads when you think
about the word sacrifice. For me two separate images come into my head about
it:
Firstly,
the image of ritual sacrifice, like ancient Jewish people would have done in
Jesus’ day, the sacrifice of lambs at the altar of the lord in Jerusalem. In
fact many traditional religions still practice this idea of sacrifice today.
The notion of offering something up to God, or a deity in order to receive a
blessing, or favour, or in ancient Israel’s case to give thanks for God’s
abundance and loving kindness. Or to placate God for people’s Sins. It’s in
this sense that many sacrifices were offered in the Jewish temple, sacrifices
made in thanksgiving for abundance and the sheer generosity of God.
Secondly,
the image that probably comes to mind more readily to us in the here and now,
is personal sacrifice. Do you remember the advert that used to be on TV, do you
love anybody enough, to give them your last Rolo? That’s a small example of
personal sacrifice. Being in a relationship often requires sacrifice,
I’m sure if
you’ve been in one, particularly for a long time, there will have been some
kind of sacrifice that you have had to take for your partner, and visa versa. Perhaps
you have had to care for them when they are sick, or move house and abandon a
lifestyle that you loved for them. Personal sacrifice is a part of living life
well, love requires sacrifice.
St Paul
talks about love in our reading from Corinthians this morning. In the NRSV verses
4-7 are translated; “Love is patient; love is kind; love
is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Love requires sacrifice, it means not always getting our own way. It means for
better or for worse, it means for richer for poorer.
In our
reading this morning from Luke, Jesus begins with pointing towards the cross and
says “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the
prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.” But what did the
prophets say about Jesus? One example that’s very relevant is Isaiah 53.
“Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
Jesus was a
sacrifice for us all. Sacrifice. Why? Why did someone have to die for me? Now
here lies the problem for me, there are some theologies that treat the cross as
a blood sacrifice, to appease God’s wrath a sacrifice had to be made because
our sins were so terrible, so God offered himself on the cross in the form of
Jesus to pay back the punishment that God should have inflicted on us. That’s
fine to believe that, but the intellectual problem I have is, that doesn’t
sound much like love to me.
If you love
someone, if you love one of your children for example, and they do something
wrong to you, do you want to hurt them? Is that a loving way to act? Or would
you seek to change their behaviour through instruction? Seek to reconcile you
and them?
Jesus on
the cross was a sacrifice, for the sins of everybody, not to appease God’s
desire for blood, but to reconcile us to him. Love. God’s love is so massive,
so enormous, that on the cross he died to go the distance, to reconcile us to
himself, totally. To bring the created order back into line with God’s loving
purposes, and to reach out in forgiveness to all of humanity.
Remember
the two images I used for sacrifice? I think the cross is more like the second
one, a sacrifice in and through and with love. The kind of sacrifice that bears
all things. Because God’s love “is patient; is kind; is not envious or boastful
or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its
own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
St Paul
goes on to say “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to
face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been
fully known.” God has reconciled us to himself in Jesus. God has loved and
known us since before the world began. Love requires sacrifice, and God has
done that sacrifice of Love for us.
He would
definitely give us his last Rolo.
Amen.
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