Louisville Process Theology Network

The Meaning of Sacrifice, III

Mar 29, 2006

This idea always sounded a little strange to some of us. Why would God want an human sacrifice, we wondered? It sounds cruel. Would we still believe the Biblical teachings of Jesus if he had lived to a ripe old age like Noah or Moses? It would seem so.

What Jesus actually did, some of us believe, was take a huge risk for our sake. He weighed the possiblity that the authorities might kill him against the hope that he could teach us of new way to avoid repeating past sins.

This is true love; the willingness to take risks for the benefit of others. We don't want to die when we do these things for others. Maybe we even put the idea of own mortality out of our minds in these moments. We just take the risk and hope for the best.

As for God's purpose in all this, some of us reflect on Amos 5:21-24, which was said to be one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite scriptures. "I despise your feasts and your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them... but let justice roll down like waters and righeousness like an everflowing stream."

Surely, God just wants us to do better and keep trying to do better still. Maybe God did not actually want Jesus to die. He or She just might have wanted Jesus to show us the better way, and that involved risk. Jesus was brave enough and loving enough to accept the challenge and the risk that came with it. That is how Jesus died for our sins, some of us believe.

Iris Chang was willing to take risks for the sake of others, too. Had the authorities threatened her life, she surely would have spoken out anyway. It appears that she confronting internal threats as well. And, she died for our sins in her own efforts to show us the better way.