Trevor Wikre is a college football player, or at least he was one this past fall. He’s now close to graduating, if he hasn’t already. You could say that Trevor left everything out on the field when he banged bodies with the big heavies while playing offensive line for Division II Mesa State in Grand Junction, Colorado. Well, maybe not everything, but certainly at least one thing.

About midway through the 2008 season, Trevor was at practice one afternoon when his pinky finger got caught in a linebacker’s jersey on a sweep play. When the whistle blew, the lineman looked down to find the little digit bent at a horrific angle, the bone sticking out of the skin. Most guys would head straight to the locker room and call their mommies, but not Trevor, who told the trainer to, "Just tape it up. We’ve got practice to finish."

But the trainer finally convinced Trevor to go to the hospital, where doctors told him that they’d need to insert pins, repair ligaments, and make his finger look like a finger again. The prognosis? Four months to heal and no football. His season was over.

"No way," said Trevor. "This is my senior year. We’ve got to make this work. "We can’t," said the docs. "We can," insisted Trevor. "We can cut it off." Say what, now?

Trevor explains, if an explanation is really possible: "To have somebody tell you that you’ve played your last game of football, I just wasn’t going to let that happen. I couldn’t do that to my teammates. I’d take a bullet for those guys." Or, at least sacrifice the ability to button his shirts easily, hold a handful of M&Ms, type the letter "p" on a keyboard or look daintily sophisticated at a tea party.

So after signing what we can only speculate must have been a ream of consent forms, the docs gave Trevor his wish and amputated the broken digit. He still missed one game — "Some stupid thing like the stitches would rip," he growls — but then was back on the field for the rest of the season, which ended with Mesa State holding a 6-5 record.

Bizarre? Crazy? Yeah, but it gets even weirder. Trevor’s coach, Joe Ramunno, once did the same thing. He slashed his finger in a high-school shop class 29 years ago and insisted the docs cut it off so he wouldn’t miss his senior season. Picture Trevor and his coach giving each other a "high four" when the offense came off the field.

How do the people around Trevor feel about his sacrifice? Most of his teammates were awestruck by his commitment. "Amazing," said quarterback Phil Vigil. Others, particularly those nursing their own injuries, weren’t so keen. "Thanks a lot for making us look like sissies," said one. His mom was supportive and his fiancée, Traci, looked at the bright side. "I feel kinda good about it," she says, "I know that if he ever needs to sacrifice for our future, he’ll do it."

Here’s hoping that the wedding doesn’t cost Trevor an arm and a leg! For Trevor, who now aspires to coach football himself, it was all worth it. "When I think about how much I love football and my team, I just get goose bumps," he says. "I love my team.

Even before his pinky incident, Trevor Wikre was not likely to ever be a prospect for the NFL. It wasn’t a self-serving career that he sacrificed his pinky for, but a moment in time. He loves football and loved his teammates, and we have to assume that in his four years at Mesa State, his coach and fellow players loved him a whole lot, too. We shake our heads in disbelief and maybe even in disgust at what he did, but we have to remember that people will do just about anything for someone when they are truly loved.

Jesus did it for us because he was loved into it by God. We can do it for others because we have been loved into it by Christ.

For Jesus, "laying down" his life meant a painful physical sacrifice. It meant the sinless Son of God would have to suffer and die on the cross, after he was beaten and mocked and tortured. We may never be called to do that for another, but there are lots of ways of laying down our lives that don’t involve death or organ donation. We may need to amputate our personal ambitions in order to do what’s best for our families. We might be called to give sacrificially of our hard-earned money in order to care for someone who is experiencing a crushing need. We may experience a call to give up a lucrative career in order to pursue a ministry that serves people the rest of the world has forgotten.

There are a thousand ways we can lay down our lives on behalf of Jesus, but we’ll only be able to do it if we are willing to receive his love for us. We can’t earn it, only receive it and allow it to transform us. It’s only then that we, as friends of Jesus, will be able to "bear fruit" that will last.

John Henry Jowett told about a small village where an elderly woman died. She died penniless, uneducated, unsophisticated, but during her lifetime her selfless service had made a tremendous impact for Christ. On her tombstone they chiseled the words, "She did what she couldn’t."

That can be the epitaph for every Christian who will allow Christ to live through them: He can do through us what we can never do ourselves.

Jesus was born into this world to save sinners. His life, His passion, His crucifixion and His resurrection proclaim He has defeated sin, death, and devil. Now anyone who is given faith is forgiven and saved.

Think about the price for this redemption of our sinful souls. Winning our salvation cost Jesus His holy, precious blood; it meant His innocent suffering and death. It cost Jesus everything, but it costs us absolutely nothing. We Christians are freely saved by God's grace.

Trevor Wikre gave his friends on the team a pinky. That might not have been a good thing. Jesus gave his friends his own life. That was definitely a good thing. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and by our God-given faith in what Christ has done for us, what are we prepared to give as friends of Jesus? Amen