This is Part 2 of 3 about the Feast of the Sacrifice. Click here to read Part 1.
Our second full day here, we walked into the city centre past a place that had been used for sacrificing animals for Kurban Bayramı. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have known what had been done there the previous day were it not for the single van left with (live) animals inside and a few entrail-y bits and dark stains on the pavement. But just those remnants were enough for me to realise that animal sacrifice is a bloody, messy business. As a Westerner, I want to shy away from the blood and gore. When we lived in the UK, I didn't think too much about animal sacrifice and the killing of animals. My meat comes neatly packaged from the supermarket.
There's a temptation to distance ourselves from the blood and sacrifice of the cross too. I mean, we might pay lip service to it but when we sing about being 'washed in the blood' or the 'Lamb who was slain for us' but if we properly think about it, it can all seem a bit gruesome.
But I was reading a book a couple of days later which made me think. The author (Jack Klumpenhower) was talking about the Good News being a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles/Greeks. His point was that we can see similar types of people to the Jews and Greeks today. The Good News was a stumbling block to the Jews because they were trusting in their self-righteousness based on doing the right things (like sacrifices). There are people like the Jews today, who are either uncomfortable with or outright reject the idea that all of our sin was dealt with at the cross, with absolutely no contribution from ourselves whatsoever. But it was what he said about Greeks that got me thinking.
"The Greeks were worldly-wise; they considered themselves smarter than people of backwoods religions, where blood sacrifice ruled the day. The cross violated their enlightened sensibilities... [But to the people who are like Greeks today] the cross is an embarrassment. It's about sin and the wrath of God." (Jack Klumpenhower)
This year, Kurban Bayramı has reminded me that I come from a society that is far removed from blood and sacrifice. There is a temptation to think that we have moved beyond messy blood sacrifices (although the sacrifice of unborn children in a clinical setting is of course permitted), that we're far too "civilised" (ha!) to sacrifice animals in public places in the cities.
But actually our culture is anomalous in world history and we need to be careful that we read the Good News conscious of how much our cultural background has shaped our thoughts and presuppositions. Let's never think we are too wise, too educated, too enlightened for the cross.
So rather than letting our Western worldviews cloud our minds to the realities of blood and sacrifice, let's instead ask that despite our cultural background, we would appreciate the magnitude of a sacrifice once-for-all and that we would truly know the glory of the cross.
