Blessed with some extra time over a sabbatical this summer, I’ve worked my way through a pile of rather extraordinary books—some entertaining, some useful, some profound. But a few lines have struck soul-deep and lingered there. One is a lament from Catholic monk and scholar Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis:
“Instead of catching the fire of Christ’s self-oblation to the Father in union with mankind, we will spend our lives mumbling pious sentiments like ‘We must work for a better world’…”[1]
Leiva-Merikakis suggests that many people conceive of Christianity primarily as a moral or social project. The goal is to make us be good, or at least act good, however good may be defined. Jesus informs us of our duties to neighbor and reminds us to pick them up. Christian faith is “working” if it makes us better in our private lives and even more so if it inspires us to improve the world around us.
Not everything about this conception is technically wrong. Yet it somehow manages to spectacularly miss the true spirit of the Christian story. The life of Jesus comes out looking like little more than a series of moral lectures and motivational speeches, cut unfortunately short by a tragic and unjust early death. The Christian life comes out looking like a series of projects to add to our seemingly endless to-do list and balance against all the other commitments placing demands on our accounts. All this is rather standard religion. But it is not Christian faith as the early church described it.
What would it mean to say that Christian faith is about “catching the fire of Christ’s self-oblation to the Father”?
The author of Hebrews says this: “Jesus offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit as a sacrifice without any flaw” (Heb. 9:14). The imagery here draws on an ancient practice in which an animal would be brought to the temple by a worshipper, where it would be killed and burned in fire on the altar as an offering to God. The value of the animal sacrificed—significant for an ancient farmer—highlighted the worthiness of God.
But instead of placing an animal on the altar, as worshippers had done for thousands of years, the author of Hebrews pictures Jesus climbing onto the altar himself. Jesus places on the altar his powers and possessions, his dreams and longings, his days and nights, his very breath and body. He climbs onto that altar with the entirety of all that he is and has—all his perfection, his beauty, his love and compassion, all his own infinite worth. And as both priest and offering, he presents it all to be consumed by holy fire as an act of total worship.
This is the sacrifice, church proclaims, by which the world is saved.
There is purpose in this sacrifice—the redemption of the world. But to think of it as a moral or social “project” hardly does the thing justice. It is an act of supreme trust and all-consuming passion—passion for God and passion for people. Nothing is measured in proportion. Nothing is held back in reserve. It’s all poured out on the altar, every last drop, willingly surrendered to the Fires of Love. From the ashes of this sacrifice, creation is reborn.
Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service.” (Rom. 12:1). Knowing what we know of Jesus, this imagery should stop us in our tracks. Paul is saying it clearly: true Christian worship involves nothing less than placing ourselves on the altar with Jesus and catching his fire.
The Christian life is not a series of projects or obligations to add to a to-do list. It is a journey of coming to place the entirety of our lives onto the altar as an offering of passion for God and neighbor. It is a process of coming to place our full selves on the altar, in true alignment with God’s purposes, to be set ablaze and consumed in one continuous act of worship and purposeful sacrifice.
We do not light this fire ourselves. It is ignited, sparked, in us by close proximity to Christ. There is only one fire in the end. We catch his fire and then blaze there with him, part of the sacrificial fire that renewing and remaking the world.
I am with Leiva-Merikakis—piety and projects are far too weak a frame. Christian faith is a Jesus, shining on a blazing altar, beckoning us ever-closer to his bright, consuming flame.
[1] Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel according to Saint Mathew, vol. 1 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 37.
