Even When Your Sin Breaks the Internet

If you haven’t seen the story, congratulations, you’re totally unplugged from the world wide web. Here’s a summary for you: During a rock concert in Foxborough, MA, the "kiss cam" captured a man and woman embracing, but instead of a kiss, they hid. What turned out to be Andy Byron, CEO of the data company Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the company's HR head, have since lost everything, including the respect of everyone posting on social media. They have become social pariahs, every morally sensate being’s favorite object of scorn.

I’m grateful that in spite of our culture’s near total loss of moral bearings, we still view cheating with disdain. Many have thought of the aggrieved spouses and devastated children, made more vulnerable by the public nature of the scandal. God forbade adultery for a reason. It leaves deep scars.

But let’s take a break from moralizing and put ourselves in their shoes for a moment. If you’ve ever sinned big enough to create a public scandal, you’ll be able to feel a little of what they must be feeling right now. The sense of horror at the losses, the intense but unanswerable wish to rewind, the tidal wave of social shame—do you know these feelings?

At 12 years old my friend and I accidentally burned down her house. Sneaking a smoke in her living room, we startled when we heard someone open the door (it turned out to be the dog) dropping the cigarette into the side of the couch where it later ignited the batting, and ultimately the entire home. To start a fire that big felt similar, I think, to burning down the Internet.

I’m so grateful we still hate adultery, but do we equally love the God who forgives it? The God who, even when our names become synonymous with shame, offers another chance? Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot may never recover socially. David didn’t build the temple, and Moses never entered the promised land. Some damage can’t be undone. But I’ve lit enough things on fire to know that even then, EVEN THEN, God offers grace.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15).