A Sacrificial Offering

I woke this morning with an unexpected excitement to begin the season of Lent. I was surprised by my energy and anticipation to begin, since the practicing of Lent involves personal sacrifice, and my chosen fast is going to be quite a challenge for me. My feeling wasn’t exactly the joyful feeling of the beginning of the Christmas season, ushered in by holiday tunes and the twinkling lights of my Christmas tree. But it was a feeling of expectation nevertheless, the awareness that the journey I am about to take over the next 40 days will draw me towards the heart of God.

In my reading this week I came across this quote from Eugene Peterson. It filled my eyes with tears as I read it, and my thoughts have drifted back to it again and again. Perhaps this was the reminder about sacrifice I needed this year in order to engage Lent from a place of hopeful expectancy.

“We bring ourselves, our “bodies as a living sacrifice” represented by our offerings. These offerings are to be the best we have, the best that we can do. But this “best” is not given to God to show Him how good we are; it is not an attempt to gain his approval. These offerings are our best but they are also an acknowledgement that our best is not good enough. So we place our best on the altar to see what God can do with it, to see if He can do any better with it than we have been able to do. We let go of our best, give it up. So what happens next?

A priest builds a fire under the offering and burns it up. The fire transforms our gift (our lives) into smoke and fragrance that ascend to God… and we are declared whole, forgiven, healed, restored. God has used the stuff of our sins to save us from our sins.”

What a profound image. Our offering, which is not good enough but is the best we have, is BURNED in the fire. I did not have to live as an Old Testament Israelite, where my finest sheep and goats and crops were burned and sacrificed on the altar. Praise God, Christ has come and there is a new way to redemption.

And yet, God still asks for my sacrifice. He still asks for my best. And He still asks me to acknowledge that the best I have is not good enough. What humility it requires to accept my weakness. What release it requires to trust that the best I have might (and in fact, WILL) turn into nothing but smoke. Yet, because of the work of Christ… I am made whole. I am healed, accepted, cherished, restored, beloved.

Perhaps this is the reason for my hope and expectancy today. As I begin the season of Lent, I begin with the knowledge that the sacrifice I will offer to God over the next 40 days won’t be enough. I’ll likely fall into temptation or become distracted and forget. And even if I perfectly executed the 40 day fast, that surely would not be enough to save my soul.

But it will be enough to make room for the work of Christ in me. It will be enough to remind me to receive the gift offered to me by my Father in Heaven. It will be enough to keep me humble, keep me open, keep me emptied.  

Lent is about remembering who we are and who God is. It’s about coming to the end of ourselves so that we can embrace the fullness of what Jesus came to bring us.

Edna Hong puts it quite beautifully:

“Lent is a journey that could be called an upward decent, but I prefer to call it a downward ascent. It ends before the cross, where we stand in the white light of a new beginning.”

May we all embrace the opportunity to stand in the white light of a new beginning.

Author: Melody Farrell

Melody Farrell is the co-founder and acquisitions editor of Lost Poet Press. She also serves as co-pastor of Element Church Tampa and operations manager of Echo Media Group. She is associate director of Circle A Ranch, a program which teaches teenagers principles of leadership. She serves on the board of Grow Into You Foundation, a non-profit that provides coaching, mentoring, and housing for teens aging out of the foster care system. She is a wife, podcaster, musician, and mother of two from Sarasota, Florida.