As we approach Easter let our focus be on Christ and not on ourselves.

As we approach Easter let our focus be on Christ and not ourselves.

How easy it becomes to ponder what we can give up as a sacrifice for Lent.  Our intent is to simulate what Jesus did when he gave up his life.  But the reason he accepted torture was not to please any human aspect, it was to keep you and me from an eternal death.  Here is where the answer to the sin of man is the only way to overcome what Satan wanted so bad to throw at God.  Remember, pride is the mother of all sin, and Satan, an archangel, with beauty unmatched, because of his pride and free will to do as he pleased, suffered from that point until he is thrown into the fiery pit forever.  We have one thing in common with the devil.  Pride can easily affect us as humans, and we too have a free will to do as we please.  Satan, because of those two attributes, is exactly what we will use to keep us from an eternal God.

As I wrote for Ash Wednesday, it isn't keeping away from candy and those sorts of sweets that will make a difference.  It is the deeper consequence of seeking those around us who are on a slippery slope by an absence of faith and have no one to guide them back to God. 

More than one prophet heard God’s mandate regarding what he wants from his people.  “It is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.”  (Hos 6: 6).  

However, there are stories of people giving their lives as holocaust for another person, or more than one, and this type of sacrifice will stand as perfection in the eyes of God.  “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You Are my friends if you do what I command you.”  (Jn 15: 12 - 14).  

Of course, Jesus was alluding to the impending death he would face, an oblation of love for you and me and all who will follow him to Calvary, the tomb, and the resurrection of our own souls.  

So with that in mind sacrifice is essential, but not the forgetting of material items that we can do without anyway, but part of our deepest connection of sacrificing ourselves in the most pronounced manner that may leave us physically despondent for the life of another.  

The focus on Christ is the very absence of personal care for ourselves when the personal welfare of another becomes so imminent that reaching out or within a zone of danger can be a final giving up of even our life.  We are not expected to place ourselves in a precarious position as a thoughtful experience.  But, we never know when a spur of the moment occasion may present itself and without thinking we jump into action.  Until that occurs, if ever, our focus must always place others another ahead of our comfort or place of being first.  That is also a sacrifice of love that God looks for.

Ralph B. Hathaway