I was breathing deeply as I followed an elk trail up a steep hill in Northern Arizona earlier this month. The trail wove through the pine forest, crossing under fallen trees and around jagged rocks. It disappeared into straggly brush. I plunged ahead until my face mask was ripped off by a dead branch. Reaching down for the covering, I noticed blood dripping from the back of my right hand.
I had been stabbed repeatedly by branches ever since the trail went into the brush. I put my bow down, took off my camo backpack, removed a water bottle and poured enough on my hand to wash the blood away. I was getting hot, and the water had to last until I hiked back to my car. I hate to bleed, but sometimes we must make sacrifices to fulfill our goals.
I’ve been working on a sermon about the sacrifice Jesus made to restore us to innocence before God. I was bleeding a little, Jesus bled a lot. I was bleeding to continue a hike in a beautiful forest, on a crisp fall day, to give my family the luxury of grass-fed meat. He gave all his blood, on a scorching hot day, naked on a cross, to reconcile people he never met with the Father he loved.
On Sunday November 17, 1974, Kristina and I were preparing for my ordination dinner. I had been a pastor of the Church of the Open Door in San Rafael, California, for a year. On this night I was going to be ordained along with Ken Sanders and Steve Gollnick at the Carpenter’s Hall in San Rafael. We were preparing dinner for guests including my parents, Father John O’Conner, our parish priest from St. Isabella’s Catholic Church, my godfather Owen Sullivan, the members of Solid Rock, our discipleship house, and my seven brothers and sisters.
I was a carpenter as well as a pastor in those days. Kristina prepared the dinner while I built a big table with 4 by 8 sheets of plywood and saw horses. After finishing the table, I realized I was being ordained in a building that had no cross. Carpenter’s Hall was going to be stark for the Catholics attending. A cross would help it feel more like a church.
I found two rough pieces of lumber in the wood pile on the side of our house. I used my skill saw to cut one into a six-foot post and another into a four-foot cross beam. As I hastily nailed the pieces together, I smashed my left thumb with the hammer. Blood spurted out from under my nail. I grabbed my throbbing thumb to stop the bleeding. Then I thought, “A cross should have some blood.”
I placed my thumb on the left crossbeam and blood flowed onto the wood. I moved my bleeding thumb to the right side of the crossbeam. I then went to the top beam and finally to where the feet of Jesus would have been nailed. My blood stained each place crimson.
Kristina bandaged my thumb before our guests arrived. After our dinner, a friend and I put the big cross into the back of my truck and drove it to Carpenter’s Hall. We carried it inside to a spot at the side of the stage. I nailed the cross to the wall with large construction nails. Only after I had nailed it to the wall did it occur to me that it was a brazen act to nail a huge cross to a wall in a building we were only renting on Sundays. Yet, at the end of the ordination, I couldn’t bring myself to remove it. It was stained with my blood.
The Carpenters Union left that cross on their wall for several years. I had hoped the little blood I shed in clumsiness would help my Catholic family feel my ordination was authentic. Jesus shed all his blood on purpose, so we who believe in him could serve as priests and kings to his family forever.
The elk eluded me this year, but I’m still pursuing God and trying to fulfill his purposes each day. May God hear your prayers, honor your sacrifices, and establish his purposes for your life today.