Feast of Sacrifice

As I mentioned last week, Muslims all over the world celebrated Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice.  It is one of their holiest celebrations all year.  The holiday lasted all week.

Nothing was open.

Men took off work.

There was no school.

People spent time with family.

And families made trips together to have an animal sacrificed.

I took some pictures from a news website so I could show you different ways people celebrate Eid.

I think I told you that I read somewhere that over 100 million animals were slaughtered during the holiday.  Cows, sheep, goat, rams, even camels.

It's customary here to give some of your meat to neighbors if you sacrifice a bigger animal.

I don't know why these guys are laying all of this meat out, because I thought it went to the family, but since it is so much, they probably sell a ton, too.

So much blood.

 Thank you, Lord, for being the FINAL sacrifice, so that we don't have to come to You with an animal.  All you require is clean hands and a pure heart.

Pictures like this remind me of how tiresome blood and killing would have gotten day after day at the temple, and before that, the tabernacle.

The free gift of grace is truly an amazing thing!

The two pictures below are from Saudi Arabia.  You can see all the pilgrims on Hajj, an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.

One of the things they do while they are there is go to a certain area to throw stones at a certain rock, to represent throwing stones at Satan.  After the men throw the stones, they get their heads shaved, as you can see below.

I had never heard of this, but that's what this article said.

When our family went to our first visitation for the holiday, we were in a home with a live, streaming telecast at the stone-throwing rock in Mecca.

Thousands were surrounding it, throwing rocks and spitting at Satan. 

That's about all the knowledge I have for you, but I will share what we did with neighbors in an upcoming post.

I'm going to go spend a moment thanking Him for His Amazing Grace!