The Place of Sacrifice

A Covenant Service Sermon preached at Underhill Methodist Church and Chickerell Methodist Church on 8th January 2017  (the readings used for this service are at the bottom of the Blog)

What makes Church different to the WI or the Bowls Club, or art class?

It is a Place of Sacrifice.

Sacrifice comes in many shapes and forms.  Would you give someone your last rolo?  That is supposed to be quite a sacrifice.  On Remembrance Sunday we often read from the Bible “Greater love has no-one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” Giving the last rolo doesn’t quite seem in the same league as giving one’s life.

It is so important that we understand that when I say sacrifice permeates this Covenant service, its readings, the hymns, the sacrifice I am talking about is that which is ordained by God and sees its pinnacle and uniqueness in Christ but sacrifice which we are called to follow and which we are called to follow today as we renew our Covenant.

Today we consider The Place of Sacrifice

The Place of Sacrifice can be a literal place.

Exodus 24

He (Moses) got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 

When altars were built – and they were built for many reasons, in many places.  They were often linked with special occasions or encounters such as when Moses is given the Law in our Exodus reading and when the Covenant is made.  It was not unusual for them to be places of sacrifice. So in our reading from Exodus we are reminded not only that Moses made an altar but that

⁸ Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

Within this sacrificial system it seems God ordains that blood is an effective agent for bringing about right relationship with God. The sacrifice of the lamb, at for instance, Passover, has very special connotations when we get to Jesus and the New Testament and see Jesus as the Lamb of God.

In the OT there are many different forms of sacrifice.  Not all of these involved animals.  Some involved fruit, cereal, cake, oil.  But they will have included animals.  One thing that Sacrifice was to do with was dealing with sin and was a God given way of being in a right relationship with God and staying in a right relationship with God.

The thing about sacrifice is there is always a cost.

It will cost.

It will indicate priorities.

It will be a sign of relationship.

Today there are places of sacrifice.  Sometimes these are physical places where we make an offering to God; sometimes they are at particular stages of life.  Sometimes in the light of special challenges or calling from God.

Today is a place of Sacrifice.

It will cost.

It will indicate priorities.

It will be a sign of relationship.

Maybe there is some specific area of sacrifice that God is calling us to today.

The Place of Sacrifice in the New Testament becomes Jesus himself.  In him all sacrifice comes to  tumultuous climax; in him a perfect offering  all is made right between God and humankind; in him comes a once a for all sacrifice that cannot be repeated.

Those words from the Exodus reading -

Exodus 24

⁸ Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

Same kind of words used in Mark 14

²² While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’

²³ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

²⁴ ‘This is my blood of the^] covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them. 

As mentioned earlier the link between sacrifice of the lamb in OT sacrifice takes on a special resonance when one looks at Jesus as the Lamb of God who is the perfect sacrifice.  As his blood is shed so there is a perfect offering. 

You could argue that the altar that Jesus was sacrificed on was the cross, but the offering of Jesus is so much more than his death – it involves his incarnation in its fullest sense – leaving heaven to enter into the world, his birth, life, death, resurrection and Ascension.  His total self offering.

And in the life and death of Jesus and Jesus himself as the place of sacrifice so we see the example sets for how we follow him and identify ourselves as one of God’s people.

The thing that makes us essentially different to the WI or the Bowls Club, or art class?

Although we do not always act as if we are different.

For Jesus the Place of sacrifice meant

A cost

An indication of priorities

A sign of relationship.

Which brings us to

The Place of Sacrifice in our lives

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. 

Of course when Jesus said in John’s Gospel that “Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends” he was not thinking of the sacrifices (willing or unwilling, courageous or scared silly) that people would make in War – important as it is for us to recognise that sacrifice.

No he was of course thinking of himself.  He was to lay down his life for his friends.

And he calls us to follow his lead.  Not to lay down our lives in death necessarily although that call comes to some who follow Jesus – just look at the Persecuted Church today.  But he calls us to be living sacrifices.

And when we offer our hearts in sacrifice so we find a new start, a new way.

In our reading from the book of Jeremiah which talks about a new covenant to come we also read.

³³ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,’ declares the Lord.
‘I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be

Making our lives the place of sacrifice opens the way for God to do this.

Such sacrifice means

It will cost.

It will indicate priorities.

It will be a sign of relationship.

It will cost

What cost is there to us?  Are we willing for there to be a cost.  When God calls us into Covenant relationship w acknowledge there was a cost to God in Christ.

What cost is there to us in sacrifice?  Are we truly giving our lives over the God?

It will indicate priorities

Today do we resolve to put God first.  Not to fit him in around other things, people, interests.  Expressing our Christian faith, worshipping with his people, offering ourselves in service to God not as an afterthought, or fitting him in around other priorities, but making him first priority?

It will be a sign of relationship

That is it really – covenant relationship.  Not rules, not ritual, but relationship.  Not just coming to church or offering to charity, or being kind to a neighbour whilst enjoying life our way.  But a relationship with God which puts him at the centre of all we are and do.

A story in press this week.

A Brazilian grandmother has been praying to a figurine from Lord of the Rings for years without realising.

The woman thought she was praying to Saint Anthony of Padua, but it turns out the figure was Elrond, Lord of Rivendell.  Her relative Gabriela Brandao made the discovery and posted it on Facebook.

The two are different.

According to Gabriela, she's got a new figure and this time it's the real deal.

Easy to allow our gaze to drift to the wrong thing and convince ourselves that is OK.

Today is the real thing!

And at the place and point of sacrifice - on the altar something should be altered.

As we share in Covenant today so we once again make our sacrifice – of ourselves.

It is easy to take our eyes of this, to be distracted, maybe focused on the wrong thing – perhaps even when we think we are doing the right thing. 

We remember that it is the way of Christ; that we give up our ways and our lives to receive and live his life.

It will cost

It will indicate priorities

It will be a sign of relationship.

Today, here, now, for you and me this is the place of sacrifice.

Exodus 24:3-11

³ When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do.’ ⁴ Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.

He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. ⁶ Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. ⁷ Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.’

⁸ Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

⁹ Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up ¹⁰ and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. ¹¹ But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord,
    ‘when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
³² It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,’
declares the Lord.
³³ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,’ declares the Lord.
‘I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbour,
    or say to one another, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,’
declares the Lord.
‘For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.’

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Mark 14:22-25

²² While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’

²³ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

²⁴ ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them. ²⁵ ‘Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’