I just killed and cleaned our Christmas duck.

We raised this particular duck with the purpose of having him for Christmas dinner. Over the past twenty-five years, I have killed at least a couple thousand chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys to feed my family. Still, on my way out to the barn, my heart was racing and my breathing was hard. More than once, I nearly turned back toward the house to settle for a bird from the grocery store.

Taking a life—even the life of an animal, even the life of an animal raised for meat—is hard.

I could have paid someone else to do it for me. I could have taken the duck to an abattoir, or simply purchased a neatly wrapped bird from the freezer case. But I did not. There are three reasons why.

First, because life is costly—and it should be felt

Modern life works very hard to shield us from the cost of our comforts. Meat appears on Styrofoam trays, disconnected from breath and blood and beating hearts. Death is hidden behind stainless steel doors, outsourced to systems designed to make us forget that life was ever taken at all.

But life does not cease to be costly simply because we refuse to look at the cost.

When I kill an animal I have raised, I am forced to reckon—physically, emotionally, and morally—with what it means to eat. I cannot pretend that nourishment comes without sacrifice. I cannot anesthetize myself to the reality that something living has died so that my family might live.

That discomfort is not a failure. It is a gift.

A person who feels nothing when taking a life has not advanced morally; he has diminished himself. If eating meat required no gravity, no pause, no internal resistance, then something essential to our humanity would be missing. The racing heart is not weakness. It is witness.

Second, because responsibility should not be outsourced

There is a temptation—especially for those of us who speak often about stewardship, ethics, and faith—to let others bear the weight of actions we benefit from. We enjoy the product while distancing ourselves from the process. We keep our hands clean and our consciences quiet by paying someone else to do the difficult work.

But responsibility does not vanish when it is delegated.

If I am willing to eat meat, I should be willing—at least in principle—to face what that entails. I may not personally kill every animal I ever consume, but I should never pretend that killing is not involved. When I do the work myself, I cannot indulge in moral abstraction. The cost is no longer theoretical.

There is honesty in that.

Outsourcing necessity can be practical; outsourcing conscience is not. Taking responsibility, even when it is uncomfortable, disciplines the soul in ways convenience never will.

Third, because gratitude grows where sacrifice is acknowledged

The meal that will come from this duck will not be casual. It will not be eaten thoughtlessly. It will be received with thanks—not as a reflex, but as a response grounded in reality.

Gratitude is not strengthened by abundance alone. It is strengthened by awareness.

When you have fed an animal, protected it, ended its life, and prepared it for the table, you do not bow your head out of habit. You bow because you know exactly what you are thanking God for. The food before you is no longer generic provision; it is specific mercy.

In Scripture, blood is never treated lightly. Neither is food. Eating has always been bound up with dependence, humility, and acknowledgment of God as the giver of life. To eat without gratitude is to forget that we are creatures. To eat with gratitude is to remember our place in the order of things.

A Christmas reflection

It is not lost on me that this duck is for Christmas.

The season that celebrates the Incarnation—the God who did not remain distant, who did not outsource suffering, who entered fully into the cost of life and death—ought to shape how we think about sacrifice. Life is sustained by life given. That truth runs through creation, through the altar, and ultimately through the cross.

Killing the Christmas duck did not make me feel righteous. It made me feel sober. It reminded me that living responsibly in God’s world requires more courage than convenience, more honesty than abstraction, and more gratitude than comfort encourages.

I did not turn back to the house.

And when we sit down to eat, I will give thanks—not vaguely, not sentimentally, but with clear eyes and a full heart—for the life given, the meal prepared, and the God who provides both.