Sacrifice

So often, as a protestant I have been guilty of reducing the notion of the O.T. sacrifice to an outdated and no longer necessary function of worship. And yet, while the sacrificial system was eradicated by Christ’s culminating sacrifice on the cross, it is His same sacrifice that establishes the precedent for the “pouring out” of our very selves in acts of worship.
Walter Brueggamann understands the sacrifice as “a deep bodied engagement by bodied creatures with the creator” (183). This becomes both more powerful and pertinent when the sacrifice is understood as a specific “religious action” or liturgy – this sacrifice becomes more than a symbolic manifestation of worship as a conscious act of self purification, an act of “making holy”. For the Israelite, that participation in this liturgy of sacrifice was really a participation in a reflection of the salvation drama of Israel.
Paul extends this idea for the life of the new covenant believer in Romans 12 where he establishes the idea of a living sacrifice as an act of worship. He does this by drawing a link between the O.T. system of redemption and worship and the N.T., where the believers are the sacrifice and what they do in body and mind is offered up in worship as a sacrifice to God. We the believers then are able to participate in the cosmic salvation drama, and as actors in this drama participate in this divine act of becoming holy. Not only are we ourselves reconciled through this kind of participation in the divine nature, but so too is the world around us via our demonstration of the cosmic act of redemption. This kind of imaginative engagement in worship has the potential for grand transformation.