A Broken Sacrifice

When we think about a sacrifice of a broken heart, we might think that the sacrifice is allowing our heart to be broken, or else intentionally breaking our heart as some sign of our contrition or remorse. But what is we have it backwards? What if we are sacrificing not a whole heart to be broken, but rather what we are sacrificing is the illusion that our heart was ever whole and unbroken in the first place? In this way, we are sacrificing our obsession to appear righteous or holy or perfect, so that we can admit that we are flawed and broken sinners and thus need our Savior's grace and mercy. By so admitting that we are broken we can finally give the Savior the room He needs to apply the power of the Atonement in our lives and help us to become more righteous and holy and perfect. We would so love to stand with the Pharisees and say, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." But it is a sacrifice for us to accept the fact that we are more like the Publican, "standing afar off, [who] would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." (Luke 18:11-13). We like to imagine that we are more like Nephi, steadfast, never wavering, always choosing the right. But it is a sacrifice to admit that more often than not we are a lot closer to Laman and Lemuel, flawed, hard-hearted, murmuring. We like to imagine that our default state is more like Paul or Alma the Younger as they eventually became - brilliant missionaries, unflinching in their devotion even when thrust into the most painful of trials - when if we are being honest we are much closer to Paul or Alma the Younger as they originally started out - prideful, destructive, convinced of our own superiority. The Sacrifice that Christ needs of us most is that we sacrifice our vain imaginings of our own perfection and righteousness. When we can finally admit that we are broken, when instead of a gleaming, flawless, unmarred heart, all we can offer is an ugly, selfish, prideful, traumatized, broken heart, that is when we are ready to be changed, to be cleansed, to be purified and sanctified and healed. I know that the more often and the more fully we can sacrifice our pride and our ego and our need to be perceived as righteous or normal or unbroken, the more comfortable and trusting and eager we will be to embrace our beloved Savior in all our glorious brokenness. After all, Jesus Christ Himself in all of His resurrected glory bears proudly the scars and the marks of the brokenness He endured. If Christ is not ashamed to have been broken for the sins of the world, then let us neither be ashamed of our brokenness.