Sacrifice

George Shaw Cook

When Abraham was ready to obey what he conceived to be the will of God, namely, to sacrifice his only son upon the altar, a way was provided for him to avoid this necessity. A ram was substituted for his son, as a sacrifice, and the human life of Isaac was thus preserved.

It is often found, as in the case of Abraham, that true willingness to give up those things which are held humanly dear is all that is required, and that the actual sacrifice of those things does not become necessary. Thus it is proved that what is most needed is the sacrifice of a personal sense of possession and the substitution in consciousness of spiritual ideas for material beliefs. The Psalmist sang: "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

In the situation which appears to exist in the world today, it may seem that many sacrifices of a material nature are required in order to further the cause of humanity and justice, but the mere sacrifice of things is not by any means all that is needed. That which is of greatest importance is to give up false human concepts of ease, comfort, and security, and to replace them with a more spiritual and, therefore, a more permanent sense thereof.

One might sacrifice every material thing he possessed because of a wrong sense of human obligation and still retain a material concept of substance and a limited, finite sense of supply. This, in the light of Christian Science teaching, might be of little real value either to the one making the sacrifice or to those for whom it was made. What is most needed in order to progress in spiritual understanding and in the practical application thereof for the advancement of mankind, is the sacrifice of a false sense of self. On page 15 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Without a fitness for holiness, we cannot receive holiness;" and she continues on the next page, "A great sacrifice of material things must precede this advanced spiritual understanding." Experience seems to indicate that the most difficult thing for mortals to give up is a material, personal sense of self.

Sometimes, those who call most loudly upon others for sacrifices of one kind or another are those who are least willing to give up the things which they deem necessary to a human sense of pleasure and convenience. They are, therefore, not consistent in making such demands, but this was not true of Christ Jesus, the master Christian and the Way-shower for mankind. When he called Simon and his brother to leave off being fishermen and to become fishers of men, he was quite ready to share with them the privations as well as the privileges of Christian fellowship.

When Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, was ready to say, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done," he had reached the point where he was willing to submit to crucifixion for the purpose of proving that the true spiritual Life of man is eternal. Not only this, but he was able to prove that envy and hate were powerless to destroy even his human body, for he brought this material body out of the tomb and continued with it until the ascension. Of this experience our Leader writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 218): "Neither the Old nor the New Testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body, but for its restoration to life and health as the scientific proof of 'God with us.' The power and prerogative of Truth are to destroy all disease and to raise the dead—even the self-same Lazarus. The spiritual body, the incorporeal idea, came with the ascension."

Christian Science, then, reveals the demonstration of Truth as a process of gaining rather than of giving up. To gain through Christ, the spiritual idea, a true sense of home, relationship, occupation, body, church, government, and so forth, involves the surrender of all false concepts thereof, but it means gain instead of loss. And nothing is gained through believing that God, divine Love, requires the sacrifice of anything real, true, or good. The prophet Micah must have discerned this fact to some extent, at least, for he wrote, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

George Shaw Cook

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