We don’t use the word “altar” in regular, everyday conversation. We use a related word “alter” more frequently. Often you will see the word “altar” misspelled as “alter” probably due to this. Altars in the Old Testament were places where animals and sometimes people were sacrificed both to known and unknown gods and to the true Creator God of the universe. Blood was shed. It had to be messy and smelly. Our 2018 selves are not familiar with slaughterhouses so just the thought of it is difficult to imagine.
On a trip to Czech Republic a few years ago, we took a day trip to Terazin, a Nazi concentration camp. Just yesterday, I was reading that there are young people who attend public school in the US who are unaware of the holocaust of what happened here and in other camps in Europe. Of the estimated 155,000 Jews who lived in or passed through Terazin, 80% died (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-terezin). Terazin was at one time set up as a fake Jewish city and was put on display for the Red Cross for the Nazis to try to show they were treating Jews well. While not primarily a death camp, it still housed crematoriums. I remember walking in and thinking “Even if no one told me what that contraption was, I could figure out it was designed to burn a body.”
In comparison of the altar and the crematorium, both are places where people come to die. Some come willingly. Some do not. Some do not come to the altar at all. For some, that altar is only a place to get married, serve communion, dedicate a baby, or join the church. It is not seen as a place of death. Have you been to the altar to die to yourself, to recognize your own mortality and repent and turn to Christ who is the only path to life and hope?
When I encourage people to get into a discipleship group to help them grow as a believer, I find getting a positive response difficult. Some may respond positively at first but on looking at the time commitment, the task, and the sacrifice—they back away. It is hard, but to grow into a mature of believer, growth is needed and it takes the sacrifice of dying to self to live for Christ. In areas of the world where Christians are persecuted, even to the point of death, even new believers make great sacrifice to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus in the US, it doesn’t mean much sacrifice or persecution, but it still means to die to self to be born again in Christ (John 3:3-7).
Dying to self to live for Christ is both a one-time thing and a lifelong process. Have you been to the altar? Do you revisit the altar and repent when you start to walk like the world instead of like Christ? Come to the altar; the Father’s arms are open wide.
