“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
--God - Hosea 6:6
“We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight, so stick around.”
--Elton John and Bernie Taupin - Bennie and the Jets
As I’m heading into the mysterious depths of the end of Holy Week this year, I’m trying to wrap my mind around the concept of Jesus dying for our sins.
It’s baffling to me. Ever since the first time I ever heard a Baptist preacher proclaim it from a pulpit when I was a child, I’ve periodically pondered it and then decided it was just over my head. I’ve skipped it in my spiritual development just like I skip math questions on I.Q. tests. It’s too complicated. It bounces off my brain like a Nerf ball. I don’t know the ins and outs of this covenant that God made by sacrificing his only son, but I know it’s the truth – just like I don’t know how electricity works but I know it makes lightbulbs glow.
This year, though, I am a nun. I’ve got to get some kind of grasp of this theological trigonometry question or I’ll be struck dumb when some earnest spiritual seeker asks me about it in the future. I’ve never been to seminary, I’m bored to tears by long intellectual diatribes on the subject and I don’t have any real concept of the correct theology on it so I’ve decided simply to figure out what I, personally, think the whole thing means.
