So today, I was listening to a great homily about how God doesn't want burnt offerings of animals, and I figured I'd share my thoughts about it. (These are my thoughts, not what the priest actually said).

It's weird because I guess I'm just really dense and I'd thought that line about burnt offerings was just something like, "yeah, don't go killing animals. That's not cool."

But it isn't a hippie speech. And it isn't God being like, "ew, burning animals is icky. Don't do that."

And obviously, during much of history, God did ask for burnt offerings, so it's not like He once thought it was cool to burn animals but then He changed His mind, because God doesn't change His mind.

The priest today said that He doesn't like animal sacrifices because it's too easy. 

And that's the clincher. Because, although early on in our history, when we were just learning how to relate to God, sacrificing animals was fine. It was obedience. God said, "Make a sacrifice," and we obeyed Him by sacrificing animals. But the truth is that sacrificing animals is the moral equivalent giving someone one of your toys. It's what toddlers do.

And as we've grown as a race in our knowledge of God, as God revealed Himself to us and we've come to know Him more fully, we can't stay moral 2-year-olds. We need to mature in our interactions with God.

And sacrificing animals is too easy. Because it's an external sacrifice. I lose nothing of myself if I give you a goat. What we need to sacrifice is ourselves, our own hearts. This kind of sacrifice is greater, deeper, more personal. It's also more abstract for us to comprehend, which is why it requires more maturity.

Jesus gave us the perfect example. He sacrificed Himself as a Lamb. We can look at that and say, "Oh, it's like sacrificing a Lamb." But then we can look deeper and see that He sacrificed himself. He gave us the example going forward that we must take up our crosses and follow Him.

I'm praying for you!

:)