We did see today the worst storm of the winter in London with high winds, lots of rain, and even a “eye” that passed over the city at lunchtime.
But later in the day I am watching Fox News and the implosion of Eliot Spitzer. How does a guy who has everything get himself in the position of losing it all by getting caught up in a prostitution ring? The Governor of the Empire State no less! Crusader against Wall Street abuses and friend of the small share holder. How does it happen? What else can you say but he is a sinner, a man like all of us, who is broken inside and not how he should be.
Overall people just don’t understand how deep our sinfulness goes. They think it is what we do, but it is who we are. Even Christians misunderstand how deep the problem goes and somehow overlook the startlingly obvious fact that this thing that envelopes us meant Jesus had to die for us to be rid of it. Seems to me that must be a pretty big problem. St. Paul throughout his letters understands that he is not what he was created to be and when he says in Romans 7:24 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” it’s because he knows what he should do but just simply can’t. That’s sin, which as a good (actually probably not that good) Calvinist I know this touches every part of who we are. Maybe we should wonder that anyone does the right thing.
And then there is sex, the thing specifically that got Governor Spitzer into hot water. I like sex and, like the rest of the created order, it was given to me (and humanity) to enjoy. But it is also not a coincidence that there is much guidance in the scriptures about how to keep this God given gift in its proper context. Take that gift outside of its proper context in marriage and you have a recipe for sadness and disappointment at best. Like with Eliot Spitzer.
I worry for my children. They are now surrounded by a storm of images and insinuations that push them towards sexual experience too young and outside of marriage. It is up to us as a Christian Community to offer our children a calm “eye” in the middle of that storm that affirms their choice to wait and encourages the exercise of the gift of sex in marriages that will nurture the next generation of believers.