The Sacrifice

It's my first October in Senegal, and the holiday of Tabaski (called Eid al-Adha in many Arabic-speaking countries) arrives.

The morning dawns, bright and sunny and hot.  Because it's a holiday, there are no language sessions for me today.  Kids aren't in school and the adults aren't at work.  There's a festiveness in the air itself; I can feel it somehow and it reminds me of holidays back home - the expectancy you feel when you wake up on Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Even though I'm just here in my own apartment with no plans for the day, the fact that I can "sense" the holiday in the air makes me feel a little less alone, as though I'm connected in the smallest way to the rest of the city celebrating.

I hear the neighbors chattering and the bleating of sheep.  Families are bringing them down from the rooftops, where they have been fattening up for the last several weeks, to sacrifice for today's feast (which is to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son).

I stand on my fourth-floor balcony watching the scene on the sandy "street" below.

A sheep, his legs tied with rope; one of my neighbors sharpening a knife.  The metallic scraping sound bothers me far more than usual, but I force myself to watch this just once.

The two men hold the sheep down so he won't struggle - one half holding, half kneeling on the body, the other man holding his head and his front legs.  They slit his throat; the blood soaks into the sand and the animal goes limp.

I turn away, deeply unsettled - almost sickened - by what I've seen.  It's not because I love animals (although I do).  I don't remember ever watching an animal die before.  Something about seeing the life-blood pour out seems dark and ugly.

This is what sins does.  It kills.

I've read it, heard it a thousand times, I'm sure.  But now I understand why God gave the Israelites the system of sacrifices.  The graphic reminder: Sin brings death.  Sin deserves death.  My sin requires death.

Today the whole city smells like roasted lamb.  Tomorrow it will smell like the blood and skin of all those lambs.

My mind goes to the Temple, imagining the stench of a thousand sacrifices and the blood of so many animals.  It's a dark, almost oppressive thought.  Every day, every week, every year - so much death, so much blood - each sacrifice the reminder of a sin committed.

Suppose I had to kill an animal every time I sinned?

I shudder.  It's too much to wrap my mind around.

But the picture still stands, seared into my memory: Sin, a lamb, and death.

And I find a new appreciation, a deeper gratefulness for Jesus, the Lamb of God.  The One whose blood soaked the ground because of my sin.  The Perfect One who died so that I would not have to.  The once-and-for-all Sacrifice that has taken care of my sin, wiping away all the judgement and condemnation I brought on myself.

There is no more need for sacrifices of sheep and goats.  The work is done.