Sacrifice--The Coat off His Back

I imagine we’ll be in the balcony hearing a lot about sacrifice in the coming Holy Week.  But one story of sacrifice I well remember happened the winter of 1992. It was a fairly warm winter in Winston-Salem.  Our family had just moved from South America where we had lived for the previous fourteen years.  Our three children were not quite sure what to make of winter, since we had just returned from Ecuador, the land of “eternal springtime.”

Our eldest son had received an invitation from the church youth group to a ski trip on a Saturday evening.  Not having felt the urgency in this mild winter to re-outfit with winter coats and such, we sent our ninth grade son out with his denim jacket to hit the slopes for an evening. When he returned that night, he was wearing a new ski jacket.  “Where did this come from?” we asked with some surprise in our voices.  “Uncle David gave it to me.  He was at the slopes with his boys.   He said he had another one and I could just keep this coat.”

“Uncle David” was Dr. David Smith, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lenoir, North Carolina.  He had served with us in Ecuador in the eighties.  Knowing what it was like to return to the States and live in “reverse” culture shock, David probably knew that my son’s socially inappropriate attire was probably due to our cultural confusion and chaos of readjustment to the States after so many years.  Or perhaps it was just the fact that my son was probably freezing in the denim jacket. 

That was long enough ago that I honestly don’t remember if we returned David Smith’s coat to him. I really doubt he had an extra one with him.  I think he literally gave my son the coat off his back that evening, willing to take the night’s chill upon himself in order to relieve my son of social embarrassment and the cold of winter.