This week’s theme is sacrifice.

It is fitting for the end of Isaiah 7, where Jesus is alluded to, to coincide with the theme of sacrifice and the celebration of Holy Week when we remember that Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for us. To sacrifice is to give up something for others to be saved, or to have what they really need.

The world does not look on sacrifice as a good thing anymore. Occasionally there is a story of a person putting themselves in harm’s way to save someone from a burning house or oncoming traffic. But more often the world sees sacrifice as a weakness that is shown by those who are not smart enough to get ahead at all costs, a victim.

In preaching about the Good Samaritan, Martin Luther King, Jr. Said, “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” Sacrifice involves putting the needs of others before our own.