Can you imagine? Can you imagine having your entire life uprooted? Can you imagine having to lose your spouse and children? Would currying the favor of the Lord be worth it?
Now, before we delve into this theological thought experiment, let us recognize that such sacrifices are not required of us because of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Everything God needs to reconcile us to Himself is found in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus. No one can, today, say, “If you want to be with God, you have to stop being with your spouse.”
In fact, one way to understand Jesus’ sacrifice is to truly reflect on this command given to Israel upon their return to Jerusalem after their Babylonian captivity. During Babylon’s reign, all of Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed. But then the Persians, led by Cyrus, overthrew the Babylonians and the Persians wanted Israel to return to their homeland. Israel, naturally, would still have to pay tribute to Persia, but they would no longer live as captive people; just occupied people. Yet during the years that they had lived under Babylonian rule, they had broken God’s commands around intermarriage and, hence, our passage from today. I recommend that we read this passage in a way that gives us a little taste of what all Jesus had to sacrifice Himself.
The logic works something like this: If Jesus’ sacrifice is the greatest of all sacrifices, then Israel’s sacrifice in this passage must be at least a little lesser than Jesus’. As such, if we can meditate on the horrors and trauma of this sacrifice, we can understand Jesus’ sacrifice just a little more. So, let us truly do that. Let us think about what it would be like to wake up the next morning after your family had been sent away to an empty home. Walk down the hallway. Peer into your son’s former bedroom, now emptied of his possessions. Sit at your kitchen table. Oops! You accidentally made twice as much coffee as you needed because you were on autopilot and you made enough for you and your spouse. Imagine, now, going for a walk down the street and seeing your neighbor just rocking on her front porch, crying because she is alone. You want to console her – she’s always been really nice – but what words are there really to make sense of this?
Later in the week you realize the cabinets have run bare and that’s when you realize, your spouse did all the shopping. Heck! You don’t even know what to go buy. The laundry has piled up. Your schedule is empty of everything that you used to complain about (parent-teacher conferences, ball games, weekly date nights) and your week just yaws before you empty and meaningless.
If your domestic situation is in any way comfortable and good (not all the time because spats do happen, but enough of the time that you still look with love around your Thanksgiving table and do, truly, give thanks), then you can understand the deep sorrow that Israel must’ve felt in order to make things right with God. Hold onto that feeling for a minute. Don’t run from it. Lean into it and embrace it, for this is an inkling of what Jesus felt as He was betrayed by His own, arrested, beaten, crucified, mocked.
Now switch gears. Turn that sorrow around and remember that Jesus – and only Jesus – had to face that. Because of Him, we will never suffer such loss in order to be present with God. Oh, to be sure, losses will still occur and tears will come, but they won’t be from a sacrifice that God demands in order to be friends with Him. No, in fact, in those tear-soaked moments, God makes Himself present – present because of what Jesus did for us.
As we approach Thanksgiving next week, give thanks. Give thanks that we have a God who entered into the deepest pit for us. Give thanks that we have families, friends, and a church that surrounds us with love. Give thanks for sacrifices we don’t have to make and for blessings we didn’t earn. Give thanks. Amen.
