I wasn’t more than ten years old when I watched my grandfather butcher a pig. Contrary to what some might imagine, I don’t think I was emotionally damaged by it. Sure, it was gruesome and bloody. But I also remember thinking that this is how we get food. I liked meat. I liked the idea of nourishing my body. And that was enough for my kid’s way of thinking to justify the act and not blame my grandfather for any cruelty.

Years later I learned that there was a lifestyle called vegetarianism. A classmate confronted me with the horrors of murdering living creatures for human consumption. I was troubled. Was it wrong to kill an animal for food? And then I read the novel When the Legends Die in one of my high-school English classes. It told the story of a young Native American struggling to navigate the traditional ways of his parents with the practices of white men that had been thrust upon him. At one point, the protagonist returns to the forest to hunt like his father had. After killing a deer, he thanks it for its sacrifice so that he, a man, can eat and live.

Kind of weird to pray to a dead animal, but something about it left an imprint on my imagination.

Death for the Innocent?

After all these years, this scene is the only one I remember from that book. It helped me visualize and articulate a personal proverb that was forming in my mind and that I’ve never forgotten: sacrifice precedes life, and thanksgiving is always the appropriate response.

Life in this world holds a mysterious quality that’s difficult to explain. The death of something innocent—like a deer or pig—makes it possible for something or someone else to have what is needed to live. On the surface, it doesn’t feel fair or even right. Why does something living have to die? Yet it’s the way it is—the circle of life, as some call it. Even vegetarians and vegans must kill certain living plants to nourish life in their own bodies. And gratitude is always the humble and right response.

Throughout human history this insight, in one form or another, has been developed, and implemented. Animal sacrifices have not always been merely to provide for food but also for appeasing deities to gain favors that would supposedly improve human existence. Human sacrifices were thrown into the mix as well. The ancient cultures of the Egyptians, Chinese, Carthaginians, and Aztecs are a few of the many that believed the more precious the sacrifice (an innocent child, accomplished warrior, or virgin), the greater the ultimate benefit for the community. It made sense to them, though it’s mere murder in our minds today.

Biblical Sacrifices

The ancient Israelites, also, were instructed to make bloody offerings, though not human. Perfectly-formed bulls and lambs gave up their lives to somehow provide a holy covering for the imperfect Jewish community. Their tabernacle and temple served as places for the continual butchering of animals. Why? Though never thoroughly explained to the satisfaction of modern rationalism, a theme of the innocent dying for the sake of the guilty runs throughout the Hebrew scriptures.

It is accepted as a given from the very first chapters of the biblical story. The first sin recorded in Genesis 3 results in the guilty humans hiding from God because they are suddenly aware of how different they are from their holy Creator. To mercifully clothe their nakedness, which was a tangible expression of their shame, God provides animal skins to wrap them in. The reader is left to figure out the obvious conclusion: innocent creatures had to die to cover the sin and shame of the humans that God, for some reason, cares for so much. And that is just the beginning.