On the Church's Sacrifice of Christ

Every Sunday, Orthodox Christians everywhere participate in what is called the Divine Liturgy (or, in the Western liturgical tradition, the Mass). This particular liturgical service is the foundation and central point of the rest of the Church's liturgical life. Everything else is grounded upon it, and everything else revolves around it. This is because the foundation and central point of the Christian life is the life-giving sacrifice of Christ, and that is precisely what occurs in the Divine Liturgy. In the Divine Liturgy, the Church offers Christ anew in sacrifice week after week upon the altar, and in so doing, the Church joins in with Christ's sacrifice and participates in this holy and divine self-offering for the life of the world. (And for those of you already thinking it, let me assure you: this sounds very Catholic because it is exactly what Roman Catholics believe and do too.)

But how can this be? Do not the apostles, again and again, bear witness in Holy Scripture to the once-and-for-all, sufficient sacrifice of Christ? Indeed! So, how then can we possibly offer Christ in sacrifice again? And why would we? It's a good question (and a very, very important one) which I'll answer with another question. What do we mean by sacrifice?

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul bears witness to several (incredible) dimensions of Christ's saving sacrifice for us as he exhorts the Church to imitate the lowliness of our Lord who, through humility, accomplished the secret will of God for mankind’s redemption. Being himself very God of very God, says St. Paul, Christ descended to earth in-fleshed that he might become one of us and in so doing heal, rescue, and perfect our fallen race. Speaking of this divine sacrament (mystery) of salvific self-offering, St. Paul uses a particular word — kenosis — which in our English text is rendered most often as some form of “self-emptying.”

…though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Letter to the Philippians, 2.7-8

We might easily consider (at length) the question of what exactly this unfathomable act of divine self-emptying could mean. But rather than that, let’s consider the question of how. How is it that kenosis occurred — by what means has Christ emptied himself in self-offering? While the question might initially seem quite daunting, a simple rephrasing might assist us in seeing a simple yet sufficient answer: How did Jesus Christ become incarnate? The Church offers us the answer in her Creeds. The Nicene Creed tells us that Christ "was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary, and was made man," and the Apostles' Creed tells us similarly that "[he] was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary." Christ’s self-emptying was accomplished by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

And yet, this pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit is not a new act, per se. Just as the Son is eternally-begotten of the Father even before the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father from before all ages. The Holy Spirit has always been and is always being poured out by God from God. In other words, God's self-emptying (kenosis) which is commonly associated solely with Christ's incarnation is not actually restricted to the Incarnation alone because it is not new to God. Quite the opposite. Self-emptying is the essence of God's eternal, inner life since before all ages, so all he does is done by the outpouring of his Holy Spirit. The Incarnation is merely God's perpetual self-emptying taking on a new form -- a human form. But this perpetual self-emptying is the very life of God, and it is...well, perpetual. God continued to be God even in human form of Jesus Christ which means that Jesus's whole life on earth was divine self-offering (kenosis). And this includes his crucifixion.

But here's where the confusion and controversy lies regarding the Church's continual sacrifice of Christ upon the altar. Were we to reduce Christ's sacrifice to the cross, i.e. his death, then the Church's continual sacrifice of Christ upon the altar literally means the Church's continual slaughtering of Christ upon the altar. And this is precisely what many interpret us to mean. However, like the Incarnation, the Crucifixion was not a singular, isolated act of divine sacrifice because sacrifice (self-emptying, kenosis) is the very life of God eternally from before all ages. The Crucifixion is merely a new mode of perpetual divine self-offering. And while this expression of God's sacrificial life did indeed manifest itself in the form of death, it's not because sacrifice means death. Sacrifice, in fact, means life (this is why Christ's sacrificial death was a life-creating, life-giving, resurrecting death), which means that the Church's perpetual sacrifice of Christ is a living sacrifice -- the living, holy, and acceptable self-sacrifice which St. Paul himself bids us offer to the Lord as our true spiritual worship.

We Orthodox don't claim to continually kill Christ upon the altar as though he were a lamb for us to slaughter week after week like the Israelites under the Old Covenant. Rather, when we claim to continually offer Christ as our sacrifice in our Divine Liturgies and Masses, we are bearing witness to and participating in Christ's eternal, divine self-offering which has now been and continues to be offered for us. Indeed! This sacrifice upon the altar is true life and true joy because in this deifying sacrament (mystery) of self-offering lies the whole of our salvation.

Christ our Passover Lamb is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast.