Sacrifice

 Why is the Christian God so bloodthirsty for animal sacrifice? Why does he require death - and hell - for sinners? Why can't he just forgive?

People forgive each other all the time. And in the light of the great consequence - eternal suffering, isn't it only right that there is a way out? That people can be forgiven, for free?

The quick retort is - well, what do you think the cross is, if not free? At least, free for us.

Yes, kind of. But why is he so sadistic as to need his own son to die? That's barbaric.

It does seem so. But also I think we cheat a bit when we talk like that. We tend to forget that we're human. And being human, we are constructed in ways that allow us to manage life. One of those human qualities is the ability to forget. We also tend to pull God down to our level and ask Him to treat us as equals - or rather, we imagine ourselves to be equal to God.

First, forgetfulness. When we wrong each other, we say 'i forgive you' and after a while things are back to normal. Given time, we forget it even happened. Well, the reality is that it happened, and nothing will ever change that. If I hit you unfairly. Your bruise will heal, your memory may fade I may do a thousand wonderful things for you and you'll be too kind to hold that hit against me, because I have paid it back. Except I haven't. I cannot ever un-hit you.  That hit is permeant, unchangeable. No sin ever disappears. It only accumulates. Our human tendency to forget makes that evil fade, and it seems inconsequential, but it truly is a lot more horrendous than we can imagine. Imagine every sin recorded in the fabric of space and time. It is heavy, and it needs dealing with. 

Talk to any child. They see it clearly than we do. They naturally want revenge - it's not fair, they cry. And we teach them to forgive, or at worst, allow the adult to punish the offender. But we all know, the child's toy is going to stay broken and no amount of punishment will unbreak it. Even buying a new one won't unbreak their toy - it only replaces it. Sin is permanent.

But we can't function if we hold on to everything like that, we whisper. We have to let go. 

Yes. We do. But that letting go is a fiction we tell ourselves in order to be able to live on. We all know the truth. But we can't expect to use that same fiction on God!

But we are human! To err is human, right?

Wrong. To err is not human. To err is the human condition. The Christian view is that error was never a human quality, but a deviation introduced by greed.

So error accumulates and is permanent, and requires fixing. 

Next, our false sense of equality. Human to human, we are on the same level. We hurt or wrong each other, we work it out. Our world is a shared space and we are used to thinking in terms of give and take, and fairness. And from that social contract we have a relative sense of justice. Because all of us make mistakes in a shared space, we have to learn to let small things go, so to speak, and to make big things smaller, within reason. 

We have statements like, don't worry about it, it's just a small thing. Hey don't over react, it's not that big a deal. Or even mind your own business (it's not a deal at all, and even if it is, it's not your deal).

We exist by default in this headspace and we sometimes imagine God does too.

But he doesn't. The biggest difference is that as creator, this isn't a space He shares with us. And it isn't even that He lives outside this space. The reality is that as creator, He owns this space. Everything, down to the atoms belong to him. Every animal, every ecosystem, every plant, every galaxy. Every system, every physical law. All his.

And when we break something, be it a plant, an animal, an eco system, a planet, Or another person, we are breaking His thing. We don't have a say about how valuable it is or what reparations are needed.

In a more human scope - if a stranger walked into my house and started breaking things and making a mess, I would get angry. And if, when I voice my anger, this stranger says ,"well, why are you so angry? Its just a minor mess!" I would rightfully call this person a self entitled prick.

Or if someone visits and decides to tear a painting off my wall and throw it away because "it's a lousy worthless painting, it spoils the wall", I would rightfully kick that person out for firstly thinking s/he had the right to do such a thing, and secondly, imagining s/he could decide for me the value of the painting my child gave me.

We may live in this world, and we have have been given by God the right to govern it, but we would be foolish to imagine it was actually ours. No, it is still God's, and the value of everything there in is still determined by God and God alone.

So if God says a sacrifice is needed, we would do well to listen. We might not understand and we have a right - a privilege given by God, not an innate authority - to ask why, but it will always remain God's prerogative both to answer the question and enforce the requirement.

These are hard truths, but don't think I made them up. It's all there in the scriptures if we read and take it seriously. God has already explained himself, but we must learn to be willing to listen.

Lest we get lost in the logic and philosophies of atonement, don't forget that while we are turning in circles and tying ourselves in knots, that even before we today have asked these questions, the Son of Man has already hung Himself on that cross, so we might be redeemed. 

He has solved our problem and paid the price even before we asked the question, so we must not spend so much time asking questions that we forget to respond to him.