Sacrifice

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2021-0513 Thursday. 1106 PM. If you read this column with any regularity, then you've likely picked up that we watch a lot of sports in our house. I subscribe to most of the league packages so that I can watch any of my fantasy players in any given match. My eldest daughter enjoys the UFC fights with me each week, along with hockey and baseball most days. My youngest daughter seems to like golf, although her attention span is very short. My son also has a very short attention span but he claims to like the Vegas Knights and does pay attention to the NASCAR races on Sundays. The bride just puts up with it all. The Kentucky derby once a year and the Olympics every two is enough for her.

All that to say, watching a MLB game last night, my eldest overheard the color commentator giving some background on one of the players, mentioning that upon entering the majors, he had a chance to meet his idol.

Isn't it bad to talk about idols? She asked. As I've been reading through the Pentateuch (the first five books of Jewish and Christian Scriptures), a few chapters a day, for a few weeks now, I was excited about the question. I thought back on all that I'd read recently and things I'd studied over the years regarding ancient idol worship.

Before the recent explosion of technology, there was far less to distract us from ourselves and each other. Without the luxuries we enjoy today, humans were far more subjected to the dangers of nature and other humans. It's suspected that having traditions, festivities, calendars and lifestyles set up in belief and worship of the gods was more prevalent for most of human history. People were given to worship nature: sun, moon, planets, plants, animals, etc. Others worshipped the supernatural: creatures or superhumans unexplained or imagined. It was common to build idols, sculpted images of the object of worship. Often, animal and human sacrifice were part of the traditions and festivities of these religions, along with detrimental sexual activity. Entire tribes, cities and nations would share a belief, a god or gods and set of advocated traditions. When Jehová met with Abraham, He made a partnership with him to multiply his family and bless them and Abraham worshipped Him alone. Abraham, his son and grandsons embark on a fascinating trip to a land Jehová has chosen for them, to replace others who don't honor Him. Years later, He hears His people cry out from their slavery in Egypt, rescues them through Moses in grandiose fashion, then sets up His law to govern them and set them apart from other nations. He instructed them to build a place for Him to dwell with them, an altar to make sacrifices for their shortcomings and led them to their promised land to occupy, giving them victory in warfare with every opposing army along the way. He emphasizes that He, alone, is worthy of worship, that worshipping anything else, making idols to show honor to things or people created by Him, is disrespectful to Him and unacceptable. Making an idol back then was rebelling against the Lord and nation. I answered. In our current culture, idol means somebody we look up to because they do something we admire or want to accomplish. Yet, I think of today's distractions, self sufficiency, ignorance and myopia. I've argued before that sacrifice innately means something must die, though I'll concede that we've watered down the definition these days. We all have ideals, ethics and morals we've inherited or built from personal experience. Many of us even believe in the supernatural or spiritual. Even so, the life of comfort, financial stability and solidarity tempts us to compromise, concede, and conflate our spiritual and actual physical understandings.

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Will I sacrifice for my shortcomings in order to show the world Jesus is King? Will I practice His governing law: care for orphans and widows, harbor the alien stranger, act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Seems like our current society could use more of that right now. This is bakesHere. 2021-0513 Thursday. 1106 PM. ACQUIRE as NEEDED. bakesHere.com