Sacrifice
Photo by worldsportpics.com/Frank Uijlenbroek
Last weekend the Olympics started. This global sporting event had the most unusual, and controversial, opening ceremony in a rainy Paris.
I did not watch the mammoth four-hour presentation, I only heard about it afterwards. Many comments were not positive, especially about an inappropriate montage of the ‘Last Supper’.
Since then, The Telegraph reported: ‘Olympic bosses apologise for ‘sleazy’ drag queen Last Supper parody. The biblical scene, which included drag artists and a naked singer, was heavily criticised by politicians and members of the Catholic Church’.
There was another story that did catch my attention. It was about an Australian hockey player who chose to have part of his finger amputated so that he could compete at the Olympics!
Matt Dawson badly broke a digit on his right-hand during team training in Perth two weeks ago. Recovery from surgery to repair it would have taken months, so he opted to have it removed.
It was a headline grabbing story, that revealed the extent some will go to for certain things! This reminded me of what Jesus did. The Apostle Paul explained it in his letter to the Philippians, in the Bible. Jesus…
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
Before Jesus came to the earth, he was part of the heavenly Godhead. He gave that up to become a man, born as a baby, growing up with earthly parents until he started his ministry at the age of 30.
He came to serve the very people he created, speaking about and demonstrating what God is like. This led to an horrific brutal death. Three days later he was raised back to life, death had been defeated and he opened a way for all people to be restored to God the Father.
Jesus gave up so much for us, but it was worth it! The fruit of this sacrifice has been thousands upon thousands of people becoming Christians over many centuries. The global Church continues to proclaim and demonstrate what God is like today.
Are you willing to sacrifice something for a greater good? Jesus did that for you!
I do hope that Matt Dawson’s Olympic sacrifice was worth it!
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader