If you get The Hartford Courant at home, you probably saw the grim-faced couple on the front page, with the headline underneath that read “What Was He Thinking?”  Above the picture, it read “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”

My initial reaction, to be honest, was to laugh.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I certainly wasn’t laughing at the fact that Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, got caught soliciting a prostitute, or at the tragic effect this will have on his family and the state of New York.  I was laughing at the way the Courant put it:  “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”  I guess that as a follower of Jesus and a believer in the God of the Bible, I have no struggle understanding how a man could seek out the services of a “call girl.”  More than that, I know that it is only by the grace of God that it is not MY picture on the front page instead of that of Governor Spitzer.  No – my reaction of laughter was not at Spitzer’s tragic mistake, but at the thought of “experts” trying to understand how anyone could desire to have sex with a call girl.

It’s called sin, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s a wrecked relationship with God, others, and the created order that causes us to do some really stupid, destructive things.  And try as some might to relegate that word to another, less enlightened era, sin has a way of rearing its ugly head again and again and causing many a person to become front page news.

The Apostle Paul was one of the leading figures in the early church, and was responsible for writing at least twelve of the books of the New Testament.  In his letter to the church in Rome, in Romans chapter 7, he writes words that surely Governor Spitzer would shout “Amen” to (regardless of his religion):

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do– this I keep on doing…  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 

At Governor Spitzer’s press conference, he said “I have acted in a way that violates my… or any… sense of right and wrong,” and “I failed to live up to the standard I expect from myself.”  To which I say, “Welcome to the club.”  Paul knew it to be true, and I know it as well – I know what is right and what is wrong, but even though I have the desire to do what is good, I cannot carry it out (Romans 7:18).  Paul and the Governor both testify to the reality that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, something that entices us to act in ways that we know will eventually destroy us, our relationship with God, and our relationships with the ones we love.

The core message of the Christian gospel is that we are sinners saved by grace.  What that means is that I know in my very essence, I am a contradiction:  a person made in the image of God, with the capacity for incredible acts of goodness, creativity, and love, but also a person who is fallen, full of sin, capable of unspeakable wickedness and evil.  I am under no pretenses as to what I am capable of.  I know that, if I am honest, I am capable of what Governor Spitzer did, and much worse.  I have the capacity for murder, for rape, for theft, for a self-centeredness that would consume everything and everyone in my path. 

Honestly, I think The Hartford Courant should have read this way:  “Experts Struggle to Understand Why More People Don’t Have Romps with Call Girls.”  Really, with the way we are in our heart, it’s a wonder there aren’t more pastors, politicians, and the like falling into “moral failure.”  I would bet that the reasons there aren’t more moral failures are more likely fear-based – fear of getting caught, fear of getting a disease, or fear of damaging one’s reputation – than they are out of a desire for purity.

We are sinners, but the transforming beauty of the gospel is that we are sinners saved by grace.  We are not saved because of our goodness or our morality, but because Jesus came as a Savior – God coming to us – to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He came to live the life we should have lived, and to die the death we should have died, so that all who repent and turn from their sin to Jesus will be saved from the consequences of sin and set free from slavery to sin.  This truth is at the same time incredibly humbling and uplifting.  On the one hand, I know I am so full of sin, so thoroughly incapable of saving myself, that I have no hope apart from Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection paying the penalty for my sin and freeing me from bondage to it.  On the other hand, I know that I am loved so deeply that Jesus did it willingly, went through the agony of the cross to bring me forgiveness and new life.  I am no better than anyone else, yet I am loved so deeply, down to the root of my most hidden sin, that my very identity and motivation for living has been radically transformed. 

The gospel means that I can read about Eliot Spitzer with complete humility, knowing that not only am I just like him, but I am capable of much worse than what he did.  I know that I have no cause for laughing condescendingly at his mistakes, because I know that often it is only fear that holds me back from doing the very same thing, not my morality or a desire for purity.  It also means that I can read his story with incredible hope, knowing that this fall does not have to be the last word for him or his family.  As Paul put it at the end of that section in Romans 7:  “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God– through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)  I thank God for how He daily rescues me, and pray that He might do the same for Eliot Spitzer and his family.

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