Jesus & His So-Called "Sacrifice"
For the sake of
argument, I will assume that the Bible's account of
Jesus is correct.
Christians love to talk about Jesus and how he died on
the cross for
our sins. He supposedly made the ultimate
sacrifice... he gave
his life. But is it really a sacrifice when you
consider that
Jesus was only dead for three days? How is that
a sacrifice?
Jesus didn't give his life, he gave only three
days of his life
in exchange for eternal bliss in Paradise as King of
Kings. He
could have easily had the following thoughts before he
chose to die on
the cross: "So
let
me get this right, I'm going to be dead for just three
days, after
which I'll be resurrected and sent to Heaven, where
I'll spend eternity
in Paradise and be loved and worshiped by millions of
people? Um
okay... I'll do it." Heck, who wouldn't sign up for that?
It's very misleading to say that Jesus gave his life
or that he died
for our sins because when humans think of death, we
think of the
permanent and irreversible termination of life. That
is not what
Jesus volunteered for. He only volunteered to be
dead for three
days. That makes a huge difference regarding what he
actually
sacrificed.
Imagine you are
twenty
years old and someone asks you "Would you be willing
to sit in a solitary prison
cell for the rest of your life in exchange for ten
million
dollars?"
Obviously you would refuse. Now
imagine they say
"Actually, your confinement will last only three days,
after which
you'll be released and paid." Suddenly the offer
seems a lot more
appealing.
This is exactly the case with the so-called
"sacrifice" of Jesus.
People believe that sacrificing your life for
something is a
serious, significant thing. The only reason
people believe this
is because death is understood to be permanent.
If death were
easily reversible, it would cease to be a big
deal. Death
would be seen as a trivial nuisance, and giving your
life for some cause
wouldn't be a sacrifice at all since you would get
your
life back in just a few days.
To sum up: it's not much of a sacrifice to give your
life for something
when you know in advance that you'll get your life
back in just three days
along with the very generous reward of eternity in
Paradise.