To whom will you sacrifice your children?

I write this at perhaps the only time of year that our culture recognizes the worth of sacrifice—Remembrance Day. Images of battlefield horror may be the glorification of all things military or the uncensored documented proof that all things are broken. Love or hate the day, this individualistic, consumerist, me-first society can surely use the reminder of sacrifice for a cause bigger than itself.
Ironically, the most somber of silences at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is quickly followed by that most maniacal of marches towards the 25th day of the 12th month. How quickly we move from one form of child sacrifice to the next. In the former, we remember sacrifices made for the state; in the latter, we gorge on sacrifices for the self. In November, we were a people willing to lay down our lives; in December, we are gluttons for sales and easy credit.
Martin Luther once made the chilling statement, “Idolatry involves a question of what you would sacrifice your children for.” The state or the self: Which idol is receiving our children these days? Perhaps, and probably, it is both. The power of any idol is its diabolical clout that convinces us to give up our young in its name.
Now before we get uppity, snap our suspenders and declare ourselves free of such silliness, perhaps we need to be reminded of one limb of the church’s love affair with the political left and the other limb’s desperate dependency on the political right. The state still begs for—and consumes—our offspring. And then there is the surrendering of our kids to the selfish amusement and titillation of an age of decadence and excess with very few questions asked beyond, “Will that be cash or credit?”
As followers of Jesus we know the walk by faith is one of sacrifice—the self-sacrifice of Christ for sinners and the reciprocal sacrifice of the self marked by the taking up of our crosses in an about-face. You cannot be in Christ without accepting the sacrifice for you and making a sacrifice yourself. In contrast to the demands of the state, we are commanded to love even our enemies and name only one Lord. In contrast to the self, we are commanded to give up all that was once for our profit.
Yet even here, beneath a good God’s mothering wing, we do not escape the disturbing image of child sacrifice. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says, “No ethic is worthy that does not require potentially the suffering of those we love.”
The Trinity gives up the Son. And how many toddlers did Bethlehem lose to the Father’s decision to shine on David’s city? If you choose Jesus, those you love are forced to live with the ramifications of your decision. To choose Jesus under Nero meant the potential suffering of your offspring. Household conversions meant embracing an ethic your loved ones could die for.
Does this still happen? Living with such an individualistic society and spirituality, we forget that it is still the case that what adults choose is what the next generation is forced to deal with. Since, statistically at least, Canadians are abandoning Christian faith faster than the Maple Leafs, it makes you wonder what god and ethic we have sacrificed our children for. And for those who have named Jesus as Lord: Do you still believe this Christmas that he’s worth the sacrifice?