The Appeal of Sacrifice

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

The stirring last would-be words of Sydney Carton, Charles Dickens' damaged hero in A Tale of Two Cities, always bring a twinge of hopeful yearning to my soul. A yearning for a memorial to justice and truth. A yearning for meaning far beyond the natural state of things. A yearning for the eternal.

The opposer of sacrifice is selfishness. Living for myself with the belief that my needs are more important and valuable than your needs. The blood lust for selfishness- looking out for number one- is the mediation my flesh believes will satisfy, when ultimately- always- it fails. Miserably. My flesh believes that entitlement is the answer, because it is something I can create and control. But sacrifice is a much fairer fruit. A much more rare ambition.

And therein lies the appeal of sacrifice. It isn’t easy. It doesn’t come naturally. And it yields many scars that mark this road less traveled. It is a rare gem.

It is Carton's selflessness, his peaceful resignation to take the place of his rival in the grip of a rabid mob that desires nothing but revenge that draws me in. It is a beautiful picture of sacrifice. Walking into the lion’s den with a resolve that chooses not to keep the animals’ appetites at bay but invites the consequence it knows must come. Sacrifice.

“Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh.” Carton knew there was no escape, no avoidance of Madame Guillotine. And still he went. To take the place of the man who would live for everything that moved Carton and brought notes of love and purpose to his cold heart.

Would I do that? For my enemy? Would I lay down my life for one I knew would get everything I ever wanted when I would taste none of it?

Or one step further…could I live a life of sacrifice and lay down my life daily for something greater than myself? For my enemy? For the enemy of my Lord? It is my constant prayer that I would. That I would live a life that is not my own and can only speak in roaring tones of the goodness and sacrifice of One who lived a perfect life and sacrificed that I may live. That I may have everything.

We are drawn to sacrificial characters because they represent an elusive, intangible quality that our hearts search for but can not fully comprehend until they meet the Jesus who loves and saves them. That deep yearning for justice and truth that I feel every time I read the final decisive lines of my favorite Dickens novel is simply a yearning for something that I can not create. Or control. It is a desire for the eternal. It is a desire to know the One who sacrificed everything for me and the acknowledgement that I have no noble role to play. My role is sacrifice, because He first sacrificed for me. My role is love, because He first loved me.

The appeal of sacrifice:

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement- and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice.”