Every now and then, I come across a “one-liner” that compels me to ponder the merit and implications of the idea. Much has been said about sacrifice throughout literature, theology, and philosophy, and in the New Testament, it is the central climax of the story of Jesus Christ. Ironically, however, it was a line from the TV series, Turn: Washington’s Spies, that has compelled me the most: “We sacrifice so that others don’t have to.”
I have often wondered whether selfless sacrifice is ever worthwhile, and I have felt great sorrow and anger over the sacrifices made by great moral leaders, including Socrates, Jesus, the saints, both the men and the women, Martin Luther King Jr., and so on. Many not so well-known women and men have also made great sacrifices for others. News stories about ordinary bystanders jumping into a turbulent body of water to rescue a drowning stranger only to lose their own lives are not uncommon. Heroic stories abound, such as teachers sacrificing their lives to save their students’ lives during a mass shooting in their school.
What drives us to make great sacrifices can be easily surmised. The primary motivation is compassion for others. The question, however, is whether our sacrifice will actually do any good. When I attempt to answer this question, I realize I cannot answer it from a macro or collective level. I can only attempt to answer it from an individual level. From a macro level, one can readily argue that Jesus’s sacrifice did not do the world much good. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that Christianity has done the world much more harm than good for over 2000 years, largely because the sacrifice Jesus made has not only been misunderstood but also used as a weapon to provoke war, inquisitions, crusades, and a harmful sense of entitlement and superiority over others who hold different but harmless beliefs. To this day, if it were not for the separation of church and state in our government, we can speculate that so-called “heretics” or “witches” would still be hanged or burned at the stake on a daily basis just because they dared to question or disagree with the zealous Christians who, unlike Jesus, would be thrilled to torture and murder them.
On an individual level, however, I can answer that any sacrifice someone makes for another can make a great difference in that particular person’s life, depending on whether the rescued person is appreciative and grateful for the sacrifice. If the rescued person honors the sacrifice by becoming a better human being, making the most of every opportunity for self-improvement and for being a source of love, joy or healing, then the sacrifice can be deemed worthwhile. On the other hand, if the rescued person is indifferent and ungrateful for the sacrifice, then the sacrifice would not be worthwhile. If compassionate people sacrificed their lives for indifferent, ungrateful, or harmful individuals, the world would most likely have been better off had the compassionate people remained alive instead.
The paradox of the value of self-sacrifice is actually well presented in the New Testament, posing the ultimate question: Should we “turn the other cheek” or should we not “cast our pearls to swine”? Jesus and many others who sacrificed their lives must have felt a great deal of compassion and love for those whom they wished to spare from having to make their own sacrifices. It is up to every one of us to make their sacrifices worthwhile. Will we live in honor of them or trample on them like swine?
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