sacrifice

A couple weeks ago I heard a quote I really liked and have since received a copy of the chapter from which it came. I am enjoying the chapter and just ran into the paragraph that I remember so thought I should post it here:

Sacrifice is at the center of the work of salvation. Sacrifice is God's way of dealing with what is wrong in history, which is to say, what is wrong with us, individually and collectively. It is God's way of dealing with sin.

Sacrifice. All the ways we have of dealing with what is wrong with the world, whether that wrong is named "sin" or not, are in stark contrast to this. Our typical ways are through force (getting rid of what is wrong by destroying it or containing it or policing it), by education (teaching people right from wrong, and hoping that when they know the difference they will do what is right), by entertainment (distracting people from what is wrong with the world by giving them excitement and diversion, temporary vacations from the wrong), by economic improvement (providing incentives and opportunities to improve peoples' lives so that they will not out of despair and desparation, anger and retaliation, make a further mess out of things). None of these approaches is without merit. All of them in ways small and large make the world better. But none of them are God's way of accomplishing salvation. God's choice is sacrifice.

This is taken from Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (incidentally this is a line from G.M. Hopkins) by Eugene Peterson.