Laying Down the Jersey

On May 31, 2002, Pat Tillman walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals. Eight months after the September 11 attacks, he turned down the money, the fame, and the stadium crowds to enlist in the United States Army as a Ranger. His brother Kevin enlisted alongside him. Tillman was killed in action in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. He was twenty-seven years old.

When reporters pressed him for a statement after enlisting, Tillman refused interviews. He didn't want to be celebrated for doing what he simply believed was right. There was something almost biblical about that silence.

Sacrifice, by its nature, costs something real. It isn't sacrifice when we give away what we no longer want. Tillman surrendered what the rest of the world was clamoring for — security, recognition, a guaranteed future.

The apostle Paul understood this logic. He wrote that Jesus "did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but made himself nothing" (Philippians 2:6-7). The throne exchanged for a manger. The crown exchanged for thorns. True sacrifice always moves in one direction: toward the other person, at genuine cost to yourself.