Sacrificial Love
PETER W. TEAGUE
Crisis often brings out the best in people. In the midst of the current pandemic and its varying effects on all of us, we are witnesses to many stories of love and sacrifice. There are no words of commendation equal to the extraordinary efforts so many people have displayed, especially health care professionals and essential workers. These true life experiences have bolstered our spirits and reminded us of the good in people. Love of country and love of others has been on full display.
Another story of sacrificial love took place in fall of 1945, just three months before the end of World War II in Europe. Sergeant Joseph George of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, just 18 years old, was stationed in Lorient, France. George was preparing to go on patrol that evening just as he had the night before. He told his friend, Private James Caudill, that he was tired and scared. Caudill offered to take his place that evening pointing out that at age 36, he was nearly twenty years older than George and had already been blown off a torpedoed ship in the English Channel. “You’re young. Go home. Get married. Live a rich, full life.” And then Private Caudill went on patrol. A few hours later he was killed by a German sniper.
Sergeant George returned safely home. He married, and fathered five sons. One of them is Princeton Professor Robert George, an American legal scholar and political philosopher. Actively devoted to defending the values required for a just and free society, Dr. George has been identified by the New York Times as “this country’s most influential conservative thinker.”¹
In John 15:13 Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” The story of Private Caudill and Sergeant George makes us realize, in a much deeper way, what a tremendous gift this is. Professor George knows that his father lived because his friend died in his place.
Joni Eareckson Tada, author, radio host, and founder of Joni and Friends, talked on a recent podcast about the only love that defines all other loves, which is the love of God. “The love of God costs something. I recall decades ago (I was 17 years old) when I was in the hospital, lying in bed paralyzed after breaking my neck in a diving accident. My mother would stand by the guard rail of that hospital bed for hours on end holding books up so I could read them…Those sacrificial hours my mother spent by my bedside displayed a far deeper love than I ever imagined. I think that is such a sweet picture of the love of God and its greatness, all because of what it costs. What it cost Him, His precious Son…so you think: What could God the Father possibly prize so much that it would be worth assigning His own dear Son to brutal torture? What could possibly be worth the excruciating death of the apple of His eye? How about your salvation and mine?”²
Our current reality perhaps speaks even more vividly to this. George Floyd’s name has emerged as the latest illustration of a man, a brother in Christ, maliciously and inhumanely sacrificed at the hands of a system and a person gone wrong.
“According to the Houston Chronicle, he moved to Minneapolis in 2018 to leave behind his history in Houston for a new life — a fresh start — after having worked in ministry for nearly a decade in his hometown. He needed to find a job. But during his time in Texas, Floyd was a force for good. He led a basketball outreach…and helped Resurrection Houston, an up-and-coming church at the time, secure space on a basketball court in the notoriously rough area for worship services. In an undated, now-viral video, Floyd pleaded with young men in the next generation to put down their guns and stop the violence.”³
I am certain George Floyd did not realize that on May 25, 2020 he would meet his Savior face to face pinned to a curb with a knee on his neck. Nor would he or could he have imagined the ensuing protest that would erupt. History is yet to be written of the changed lives that will follow this brutal act.
Yet George, Joseph, and Joni know this reality. The love of Jesus Christ that pursues each one of us knows no bounds – it is never quarantined. Don’t stop loving others, because He never stops loving us.
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[1] David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker Published Dec. 16, 2009
[2] Break Point Podcast. Morris, Shane (Producer). (2020, May 27). Joni Eareckson Tada on How We Know What Love Is (audio podcast).
[3] Faithwire.com: George Floyd was a Bible-believing Christian With a History of Ministry Work
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Peter Teague served as president at Lancaster Bible College from 1999 to 2020. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the International Alliance for Christian Education.