Some words in the English language are used for so many things that their original or root meaning gets lost. Think, for example of the word “love.” We say that we love our family and friends. We also say that we love Pepsi or we love to sleep in. Somehow the power of the word love begins to lose its meaning.

            The word “sacrifice” is another one of those words that can lose its meaning because of the multiple ways in which we use it. Advertisements tell us that something is on sale at a sacrifice. We speak of sacrificing one thing in order to get another. So we give up chocolate in order to take off weight. In the letter to the Hebrews that we read today, we see the word used in its religious sense. But even there the meaning is not always the same.

A payback kind of God

            Let’s begin by using our imagination. Let’s imagine that God is having a conversation with his Son. The conversation goes something like this: God says, “These people have really angered me. So I am not going to love them anymore.” The Son says, “That does not sound very reasonable. There must be something that will change your mind.” So God responds, “All right, I’ll tell you what. If you go to earth and allow people to torture and kill you, I will again love my people.”

            Although this sounds like a gross or even blasphemous conversation

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