There has been a new trend amongst my friends on Facebook that is truly terrifying. Somebody will go on another’s profile and scroll all the way back to their middle school days to find the most embarrassing pictures/videos/status updates they can find, they comment or like it, and then it appears on all of your mutual friends’ newsfeeds. So for about the past month, I’ve seen baby-faced versions of my friends with braces all over Facebook. One talked in a video about trying to become an internet sensation, one had an entire album devoted to the shoes he had bought, and one was exposed for posting a status that just read “swag.” I thought this trend was hilarious until a couple of my photos from back in the day were unearthed. Now, not so much.
A much more serious version of this game plays out in our political system. We are gearing up for the midterms. Several primaries have already been held and the general election season is about to begin. We all know how exhausting (but also exhilarating) watching the mud-slinging of politics can be. For me, one of the hardest parts of watching campaigning is when one candidate finds “a skeleton in the closet” of another candidate and exploits it for political gain. It could be a financial mishap, an infidelity, or anything that will hurt the other’s reputation. Democrats have gleefully pounced on Rep. Vance McAllister’s (R-LA) infidelity scandal this year, just as Republicans took every interview opportunity two years ago to express their disgust over Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) sexting scandal. It’s not that these scandals are completely devoid of importance, but it becomes cruel as the opposing side tries to dig up scandals for the sole purpose of smearing their opponent. As voters, we sit back and observe this mudslinging and use these revelations to pass judgment on our leaders. We feed on these scandals. The reason this is so hard (and so exhilarating) to watch is that it is the very antithesis of grace.
Just like we try and scrub our middle school years away (seriously, who wants to ever relive those?) politicians try to scrub their transgressions away. The Bible says that we do not have to scrub our sins away by ourselves, but rather we can bring them to the cross and lay them before Christ. The Bible promises us that Jesus not only forgives our sins but he forgets them as well washing us white as snow. “Their sins and lawless acts, I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17).
This is the same idea that Bryan articulated so well in a post the other week. In an age of the internet and social media–where everyone is a private detective–there is no such thing as this true forgiveness amongst humans. No sin is ever truly wiped away from the eyes of our fellow sinners, but this is not so with Christ. His forgiveness has not been made obsolete by today’s technology.
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