Knox on Sacrifice

On his "Knox On" podcast, Pastor Wilson Knox devotes an episode to the meaning of sacrifice, telling three stories that build on one another.

The first comes from Wilson's younger days as a traveling preacher on a motorcycle. At a roadside gas station he watches a tall man kindly bring a sandwich to a homeless man, only to have it thrown back in his face along with curses when the homeless man learns he is a Christian. A few miles later, Wilson stops at a shopping center where a petting zoo has been set up, and he recognizes the same tall man, now with his little daughter, who begs to visit the zoo she loves so much. Her father gives her two quarters for a ticket and heads to the hardware store. But in line ahead of the girl, a poor father named Mr. Gosnel comes up fifty cents short of what he needs to buy tickets for all six of his children. Quietly, the girl drops her own money on the ground beside his foot and tells him he must have dropped something. Mr. Gosnel finds the coins, buys all six tickets, and the girl, now penniless, simply stands outside the fence watching the other children enjoy the animals. When her father returns and hears what she did, he proudly offers to buy her another ticket, but she refuses. She reminds him of the man at the gas station and of his own words: "True love means sacrifice, and sacrifice always costs something." If her daddy pays her back now, she explains, then her gift will have cost her nothing at all.

For his second story, Wilson retells the account of Abraham and Isaac from Genesis 22, inviting listeners to imagine it without knowing in advance what God has said. After three days of travel through the land of Moriah, Abraham leaves his servants behind, telling them that he and his son will worship and then both return. Isaac carries the wood up the mountain and wonders aloud where the lamb for the offering is; his father answers that God will provide it. Once the altar is built, Abraham gently tells his son the truth: there is no lamb, for God has commanded that Isaac himself be the offering. Isaac is frightened, but Abraham explains that either God is their God or He isn't, and if He truly is, they must obey and trust Him. Isaac chooses to trust too, even asking his father to bind him with the rope so his courage won't fail. Just as Abraham raises the knife, declaring his belief in God's promise, an angel calls from heaven to stop him, and a ram caught by its horns in a thicket becomes the sacrifice instead. Wilson points out that the key to the story is Abraham's remarkable faith: he told his servants "we'll come back to you," certain that God's promise meant Isaac would live.

The final story is personal, and Wilson surprises his old friend John Avery Whittaker by telling it. When Whit was a teenager in Providence, he and Jack Allen were biking down Main Street when Jack crashed into a bicycle carelessly parked in the middle of the sidewalk. It belonged to Lazlo Farnsworth, the town bully, whose gang at the time shamefully included a young Wilson Knox. Lazlo demands to give Jack a pounding for the bent fender, but Jack pleads to first deliver medicine to his sick mother. When Lazlo scoffs that Jack will never come back, Whit steps in and offers himself as the guarantee: he will wait at the River Grotto and take Jack's beating if Jack fails to return in half an hour. Jack's trip home turns into a desperate race against time, blocked by a passing train, a wrong turn in the woods, a muddy plowed field, and a very unfriendly dog. As Lazlo counts down the final seconds, Jack bursts in at the last moment, exhausted, and even offers his savings to pay for the bike. When Lazlo insists on the pounding anyway, Whit declares, "If you're gonna pound him, then you'll have to pound us both."

Wilson tries to end the story there, saying even Lazlo was moved and let them go, but Whit stops him, insisting the most important part has been left out. In truth, it was young Wilson who ordered Lazlo to release them, since Jack had paid for the damage. After Whit and Jack left, Lazlo turned on Wilson, announcing that somebody was getting a pounding that day, and Wilson took the beating in their place. Whit, who only learned of it much later, thanks Wilson at last for standing up for them. Wilson answers that he was only following Whit's example: he realized that day that none of Lazlo's goons would ever sacrifice themselves for him the way Whit did for Jack, and that unless he changed, he would never know a friendship of sacrificial love. Whit closes with the words of Jesus, that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends, and Wilson signs off, leaving his listeners to think about how their own sacrificial love is doing.