A Living Sacrifice

“My Father” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites.”

Judges 11: 36

So last month I was thinking about how God provides for his people, like how He provided an offering for Abraham so that Isaac would not be killed. In Leviticus 20:1-5, God makes it really clear that the Israelites are not to be anything like the Ammonites, who sacrifice children to the god Molech- in fact, if parents do offer their daughter or son to be killed, God demanded that those parents be stoned. God hates it that much. He does not condone this human bloodshed. So then I started thinking about old Jephthah. How come God didn’t step in for Jephthah’s daughter and provide an alternate sacrifice? Was the situation somehow different?

First off, a fast list of important things to think about when reading this story:
- burnt offerings are always supposed to be male

- human sacrifice is strictly forbidden by God

- the daughter was mourning the fact that she would “never marry,” NOT that she was “going to be killed”

- burnt flesh offerings are associated with atonement for sin, not with thanksgiving

With these questions gnawing at the brain I started reading. And what I’ve found (thank you so much, Mr. Google Scholar) is an understanding is that his daughter was offered up to be the Lord’s as a living sacrifice. The daughter would never marry and would be sent to live in the temple (sort of like how Hannah offered Samuel to the Lord and sent him to live in the temple when he was seven, sort of like the New Testament Anna who lived in the temple worshipping). It makes sense then that we see Japhthah’s daughter go up into the hills and weep because she will never marry. It makes sense then that at the end of verse 39 the writer highlights, “and she was a virgin,” NOT “and she was dead.”

So does it matter if Japhthah’s daughter was not actually killed but rather given to the House of the Lord? Does it really make a difference? Well, heck yeah it does!! She was called to be a living sacrifice, just as we are called to be living sacrifices. God doesn’t want us DEAD- He wants us to be willing to hand over our lives and our wills so that He will be the center of our life fulfilment and joy.

The daughter was put between a rock and hard place…she really didn’t have any options. Her father made a decision and for the rest of her life she had to bear the consequences of that decision. Her life dreams and secret hopes of being a wife and a mother were just swept out from under her. So at that point, she has one choice: she can live in the temple and hate every minute of it and scowl all day long, or she can live in the temple and learn to appreciate the way the light dances on the polished marble floors and she can breath deeply and sense the Holy Presence and she can choose to serve those around her with graciousness and love. And isn’t that often the One Choice we have too? A lot of the times we find ourselves in a spot with no wiggle room…sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes not. And really, our only decision is whether or not we will face that circumstance well.

Jesus, thank you for your kindness to us, for giving us strength to face one moment at a time. Help us to look to you when our knees are weak and our hearts are tired.