A brief history of biblical sacrifice

Our planning team has been trying to select an apt quote from Scripture related to fasting.

Sure, we all know the story of Jesus in the desert [if you don't, click here immediately]. But that's, well, overdone. Yet, the bible's replete with references to fasting; it's just a matter of culling.

I mentioned previously that God has desired sacrifice since the time of Cain & Abel. You know-- Cain offered meat, and Abel offered vegan, but God likes vegan better, so Cain flew off the handle...anywho--

That was just for starters. Noah stepped off the Ark and the first thing he did was build an altar. Abraham built an altar. Moses built an altar. For a long while there was a tent. Solomon built a temple of sacrifice. Joseph brought two turtledoves. I could go on, but the title of this post says, "brief".

The story of the People of God (aka Israel, aka the Body of Christ) is a story of people pleading, God asking a sacrifice, then people praising God for satisfying their plea. Inexplicably, God really likes it when an altar is built and something dies a bloody/crispy death. (waitaminute...I thought God was vegan...)

Theological and exegetical profundities aside, we already have our holocaust, our sacrifice of blood. [The various methods of dismemberment of young children are gruesomely catalogued here, if you had any doubt.]

So why does God need our sacrifice of fasting?

As already mentioned in 2Chronicles 7:14, we must humble ourselves. Fasting is humbling.

But Jesus already satisfied this requirement into perpetuity!

The brief, non-exegetical explanation is that anything Jesus did, we must also do. Not because it changes what Jesus did, but because it changes us. As the song goes, "no cross, no crown". The visceral imprint accomplished when we fast makes us take notice, it makes us com+passio="suffer with"=able to appreciate what the Lord has done for us on a whole new level and therefore truly WITH the Jesus who did all of this first so that we could be on His level.

What's the view from His level? It's a view that sees in the "products of conception" a living, delightful human being worthy of every sacrifice we're willing to offer.

Lucifer, the premier angel, couldn't handle this concept: that God, illustrious and mighty, would lavish such gratuity on so mean a creature as fickle human. We all know how that ended [if you don't, honestly, you need to invest in a bible]. Let's not go that route.

Rather, let us conscientiously regard each other as worthy, delightful, precious (vegan or not).