Sacred Offerings

SACRIFICE: n. an act of offering to a deity something precious; something given up

History:

The earliest definition for the noun form of sacrifice reads, “primarily, the slaughter of an animal (often including the subsequent consumption of it by fire) as an offering to God or a deity.” The second definition indicates a change in the sense of what is offered: “anything (material or immaterial) offered to God or a deity as an act of propitiation or homage.” The third definition, “offering by Christ of Himself to the Father as a propitiatory victim in his voluntary immolation upon the cross,” points to both divine justice required as the cost of sin and divine love manifested in Christ’s substitutionary gift. The first illustration of that third usage is found in a 14th-century collection of saints’ tales expressing both: “The sacrifice [Jesus] made for man on the [cross].”

The first definition for the verb form of sacrifice in the Oxford English Dictionary is “to offer as a sacrifice; to make an offering or sacrifice of.” The third definition simply reads, “to surrender or give up (something) for the attainment of some higher advantage or dearer object.”

Etymology:

Sacrifice came into English from Latin through Old French in the late 13th to mid-14th century. The Old French cognate sacrifise meant “offering.” That word had derived from the Latin sacrificium, “a sacrifice,” which itself derived from sacrificius, “performing priestly functions or sacrifices.” Ultimately, the word’s Latin parts—sacra (“sacred rites”) and facere (“to make, to do”)—were combined to yield an etymological definition: “a making sacred.” That which is offered becomes holy. It becomes “set apart” as sacred. Though the word has an ancient lineage, it has undergone remarkably little essential change in meaning.

Effect:

A sense of the sacred persisted during World War II, when Americans on both the battle front and the home front understood that sacrifice meant giving up everything—from personal pleasure to daily staples to one’s own life—to defeat two great enemies, an aspiration nearly all held sacred. Despite that history, sacrifice seems to have declined in frequency in political speech. Only a small minority of living Americans have been asked to make a similar sacrifice. Not even the Covid lockdowns were characterized in such a manner, although those actions did sacrifice childhood, mental health, and a healthy work ethic to a secular idol.

However, in Beyond Order, Jordan Peterson asserts, “You must sacrifice something of your manifold potential in exchange for something real in life.” In other words, willing sacrifice is a necessity for growth. Though moderns may regard ancient animal sacrifice with incredulity and disgust, they need to understand the value of sacrifice in terms of delaying gratification. A student may sacrifice time and money to achieve a degree or to qualify for a trade. The sacrifice magnifies the eventual payoff. Loving spouses sacrifice their own desires for their partner. Loving parents sacrifice time, ambition, and desires for the benefit of their children.

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain makes the mistake of sacrificing his honor to gain supernatural protection against a likely death, but his fellow knights sacrifice their pride to redeem his honor. Christ himself manifested the pinnacle of sacrifice on the cross. In a sentence Peterson regards as the crystallization of Christianity, he writes in 12 Rules for Life, “The Word that produces order from Chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God.” In Christian reality, we echo that ultimate sacrifice as we acknowledge it through our comparatively small acts of sacrifice, through which we follow Christ.