Sabbath & Sacrifice

Loving sacrificially does not have to equal self-abandonment. Even Jesus’ sacrifice was the epitome of who he was, not the abandonment of it.

Photo by Lauren Gray on Unsplash

The other day my friend and I were talking about the back-to-school season and how the last few weeks had worn us down.

We share several aspects of life at the moment, both volunteering regularly at our churches, working full-time, each having three kids, and heading into a transitional season. And we were each completely worn out.

In our back-and-forth, disjointed voice notes (because what mom of three littles during the first week of school has time for a long phone conversation?) She was describing how worn down she was and said she felt like "butter spread over too much bread."

This is what J.R.R. Tolkien writes in his book, The Fellowship of the Ring. The main character, Bilbo Baggins, has held onto a magical ring for far too long, and it has given him unnaturally long life. He is ready to let go of the ring, and live out the rest of his days in one of his favorite places—the beautiful land of the elves—and laments to the wizard Gandalf:

“... I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts ... Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

So often as wives and mothers and women, we are asked & expected (sometimes silently, sometimes loudly) to not only sacrifice ourselves, but to abandon our sense of self. Like Bilbo, we feel spread out and stretched to the ultimate limits of our being. We plan and work and serve and sacrifice until we are completely worn thin, and we can often feel like we've almost become see-through in the thinness.

But this isn’t what we see in Jesus’ life that was itself predicated on sacrifice. 

We see Jesus maintaining boundaries, knowing His limits, withdrawing to replenish His strength and well-being, and prioritizing communion with the Father, sometimes even over the needs of others around Him. 

Being fully God did not alleviate Him of the needs of being fully human. 

Women are so often unsupported in our need to be human beings. Whether it’s solitude, prioritizing our mental and physical health, maintaining friendships, practicing silence and spiritual well-being, or just resting, we are all too often expected to sacrifice to the point of self-abandonment. To keep pushing and working and giving and striving, until we collapse from sheer exhaustion. Until we look up one day and don’t recognize the woman in the mirror, much less what nourishes her body and soul. 

We can be pushed and guilted into giving up our hobbies, our health, our schedules, and our preferences time and time again, being told this is what loving sacrifice should look like when, in reality, it’s just cultural coercion that results in collective shaming if we don’t. 

But even in Jesus’ life, we don’t see that type of sacrifice.

Yes of course He gave up His life for us, the ultimate sacrifice, but out of love and compassion and obedience to the Father, which was the epitome of His character, not the forced abandonment of it. 

Jesus honored His humanity in the same way He honored His divinity—by knowing the needs of both and living within those means. He knew that caring for Himself as a human was a necessity in order to continue doing the demanding work of caring for others. 

We need to begin to see ourselves the same way. 

“Becoming like Christ” means in the ways He sacrificed and cared for others, and in the ways He lived and took care of Himself. One was not done at the exclusion of the other.

Sacrifice itself isn’t the problem. We are called to lay down our lives, to suffer, to sacrifice. But we are called to do so having been strengthened and renewed by God and living within the means of how He created us. 

Sacrificing for our careers, our children, our families, our marriages, and our churches doesn’t have to come at the cost of self-abandonment. 

Sacrificing at all costs is a problem because it’s done out of our own strength and leads to destruction instead of life. We need to learn to sacrifice within our limits, drawing boundaries around what keeps us healthy and strengthened to do that good work. 

Lately it seems there’s been a pendulum swing from previous generations living in self-abandonment to the current generation of young adults who seem hesitant to contribute if it costs them even the smallest amount of extra time, energy, comfort, or compromise that might not directly benefit them. But this isn’t how Jesus lived either. He didn’t compromise one on the altar of the other. 

He practiced both Sabbath and Sacrifice. 

As with most things, neither extreme end of the pendulum is healthy. I would venture to say both are lived out of a place of fear. We need to try to find the middle ground. The place where we are considering and caring for others, but also considering and caring for ourselves and how we show up healthily in both places. Because, I don't know about you, but when I am spread far too thin, so is my patience, my joy, my compassion, my empathy, my endurance, and my wits—like butter over too much bread.

We need to understand our God-given seasons, capacities, and limitations, but within the right context—that they are God-given so we are constantly dependent on Him to do the good work He has for us.

So, next time you find yourself bone-weary, stumbling around in exhaustion, consider the ways you may be, not  just sacrificing in love, but abandoning yourself on an altar of ungodly expectations (culture’s and your own). And if, like me, you’ve found yourself in that place and spread too thin, begin to ask yourself what healthy boundaries around your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being can look like. Then begin to take some steps toward living within your humanity. 

If, on the other hand, you’ve swung the other direction, becoming insular and rigid, too anxious to serve or too protective of your own comfort to sacrifice your resources in any way, consider Jesus’ life. Consider where you’d be without His sacrificial love for you. Consider how you can begin to, through His strength, move toward others again. Consider how sacrificing your time and energy in healthy ways can be a beautiful picture of the Gospel and Jesus’ own character.

Our lives should be a constant cycle of sabbath and sacrifice. Like the gentle in and out of breath, we take in rest and renewal and give out compassion, care, and hope. Always within the good, life-giving boundaries God meant for us. 

Prayer: 

God, You were always meant to be our strength. We were never meant to push ourselves to the brink on a pseudo-sacrificial altar of works. Help us to breathe in Your care and compassion, and breathe out Your hope and love and generosity. Help us to sacrifice within our means, within the means You give. Help us to Sabbath well in You so we may sacrifice well for others, pointing them always to Jesus. Amen.

— Whitney