The King and Sacrifice

King referenced is our Ego

Is there a little deeper meaning we should celebrate this Easter or Passover? This is in no way to lessen what Christ did, but to expand on it and His message with the meaning behind it.

There is an idea that runs quietly underneath the word sacrifice, and most of us have misunderstood it for a long time. We’ve been taught to see sacrifice as giving something up in order to gain something else, or to prove something, or to be seen in a certain way. But that version always seems to carry a kind of tension with it, as if we are losing something we still want to hold on to.

The King (our ego) understands sacrifice in that way. He is willing to give, but only in measured amounts. He will work hard, help others, step forward when needed, but underneath it all, he is keeping track. There is always a quiet calculation going on, making sure that what is given does not cost too much, that his position remains intact, that his identity is still secure.

Because the King is built on holding. He holds his place, his story, his sense of being someone who matters. He holds control where he can, and where he cannot, he at least tries to shape how things are seen. Even his version of sacrifice often becomes another way of maintaining that structure. It can look generous on the outside, but inside, it is still protecting something.

Real sacrifice feels different than that. It is much quieter, and it usually happens in places where no one else is paying attention. It shows up in moments where you could speak but choose not to, where you could correct but let it pass, where you could claim your part but allow it to remain unspoken. It is the willingness to let go of being right, of being noticed, of being affirmed.

In those moments, it can feel like something is being taken from you. There is a brief sense of loss, almost like a small part of you is being asked to step aside. But if you stay with it, you begin to see that what is being released is not your value. It is the need to protect that value.

That is where something begins to shift. When the King is not constantly managing, defending, and maintaining, there is a kind of relief that comes in. Not all at once, and not in any dramatic way, but in small, steady openings. You find yourself less caught in rehearsing what to say, less driven to shape how things unfold, and less concerned with how you are being received.

And nothing falls apart.

In fact, something becomes lighter. There is more space in the moment, more ease in simply being present, more freedom in not having to carry that constant weight of maintaining who you are.

It makes me wonder if what we have called sacrifice all these years was never really about loss in the way we thought. Perhaps it was always pointing toward this quiet releasing, this loosening of the grip we keep on ourselves. In earlier times, we may not have known how to live that inwardly, so we expressed it outwardly through offerings and rituals, trying to touch something we could not yet fully understand. It also makes you wonder if this wasn’t at the core of what yeshua tried to express, that the change was meant to happen within. And yet, over time, even that message seemed to be shaped back into sacrifice again.

You can see this pattern if you look back far enough. Long before the Bible, people were already offering things to what they believed were higher powers—food, animals, even their own lives in some cultures. It seemed to be something humanity carried early on, this idea that something valuable had to be given up to stay in right relationship with life. Maybe what was being pointed to later wasn’t the continuation of that pattern, but a quiet turning away from it.

Now it feels closer. Not something done on an altar somewhere else, but something that happens right in the middle of ordinary life. In conversations, in reactions, in the small turning points where the King rises and insists that something must be held, defended, or claimed.

And in that same moment, there is often another voice, much quieter, that simply asks if it is necessary.

That may be where sacrifice truly begins now. Not in losing who you are, but in letting go of the part that believes it must always be held together, protected, and proven.

There are times I have listened to people trying to save others with the right words, the right prayer, the right formula. And I understand the intention behind it. But it has made me wonder if what people really need is not something spoken over them, but something awakened within them.

A recognition that we are not as powerless as we sometimes believe. That there are things in our own lives we are meant to face, to carry, to work through. When Christ spoke about picking up the cross and following, it seems less like a statement about belief and more like an invitation into responsibility, into transformation.

It also raises deeper questions. About what we carry into this life. About the patterns that show up in how we treat others, or the fears that seem to have always been there. Questions about what is truly being asked of us, and what it means to be aligned with something greater than ourselves.

We have a tendency, as people, to shape things into forms we can understand and manage. Even our ideas of God can begin to reflect that. And yet, when you sit quietly with what Christ actually said, there is something in it that points beyond all of that. Something less about control, and more about becoming.

And maybe that is where this all leads back to.

Not to something we say.
But to something we are willing to live.

There is so much we do not understand because of the shift from Eastern ancient thought to modern Western understanding. \