“Blessed are the pure in heart”
Matthew 5:8 KJV
There is a scene in the third season of The Chosen that caught my attention. While Jesus is blessing a long line of people who have come to him to be healed, His apostles are setting up camp and taking care of the mundane duties required to feed and take care of everything so that His day to day ministry work can happen.
This is a scene that there isn’t a specific biblical reference for, but it is one in which I imagine that the show’s writers have thought to portray what could have been the interactions between the apostles and disciples as they learned to get to know each other and get along together in their journey with Jesus..
Jesus has gathered a very diverse group of individuals as his followers and students, as they call themselves. As they come together to eat and rest, the apostles share details of their experiences prior to meeting Jesus. The more they share the more their personalities and judgements about each begin to surface.
The argument that breaks out is on the one hand petty, but it is also understandable when in context of the difficult life that the Jewish people had lived for so long. But it’s also in direct contrast to everything Jesus was trying to teach them.
It is at this moment when tensions are at their highest that Jesus returns to the camp. He has spent the whole day healing the masses. He is exhausted from performing His Heavenly Father’s work. He turns to His students and says goodnight, and looking weary and depleted, makes his way to His tent.
What struck me the most was how, when we are here quibbling and arguing about everything in life, Jesus is in the background making the biggest sacrifice for us.
As I thought about that sacrifice, I realized I had never looked up the word ‘sacrifice’ before. The Hebrew word that is translated as sacrifice in the Old Testament is Korian which means drawing near or an approach to divinity.
That’s exactly what Jesus was doing that day. He was becoming more loving and God-like in each moment He spent healing and serving the masses.
That is what each of us does as we make sacrifices. As we give things up, we unburden ourselves from the worldly desires and issues, and we put others’ needs before our own. We become compassionate, kind, loving, and filled with empathy. We draw nearer to God.
As Bernhard Andersen, pastor and author of “Understanding the Old Testament” explains, sacrifice should not be seen “as a means of appeasing divine wrath or of cajoling God to show favours.” It is about bringing us closer to Him. To show our willingness to put our broken relationships behind us and focus on healing and restoring our covenant relationships. It’s about perspective.
That was the lesson I believe Jesus’ disciples learned. As they watched him, weary and spent from giving all of Himself that day, they were humbled into reflecting on what was truly important, and why they were there, and why they had chosen to follow Him.
This week is a time that Christians, Jews and Muslims are each reflecting on sacrifices and their relationship to God. Christians look to Jesus Christ’s sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross at Easter. Jewish Passover is a time to remember the sacrifices the Israelites experienced as Moses led them out of Egypt. While Muslims are making daily sacrifices by fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
We have the opportunity to remember the similarities between what we each believe and how the goal of the sacrifices we make is to draw us closer to the divine
I wish you and your family a Happy Easter, Passover and Ramadan. May each find peace and happiness in our hearts that we can share with the world around us.
“Joy and peace come from a divine perspective”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’