Under The Glare of God’s Cosmic Kiss-Cam

Caught!

So it’s all over the internet. Memes are being created. Laughter is being laughed. Tuts are being tutted.

You have probably seen the story. A high powered couple who were a work couple and not a married couple have been caught out as an illicit couple during a Coldplay concert in the US. The Coldplay show employed the fabled Kiss Cam that sweeps the huge audiences at sports shows in the US and showcases romantic couples.

So at their show at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, we got this:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe so. But two pictures, especially such as these two, are exponential. A million words at the very least.  As the Nightly website reveals:

No prizes for guessing which.

And that is devastating. Devastating for all concerned. Imagine the pain and the shame.  So we’ve seen a conga line up of the great and the good speaking into this situation and calling it out. There have been sober responses to this, including these words from US church consultant Ed Stetzer:

Why does Ed have to say that it’s not funny? Because so many people are laughing about it. So many people are exhibiting Schadenfreude about it.  That’s why we are getting the memes and the comedians and the sharing of the pictures. Meanwhile there is quiet pain and anguish going on behind the scenes.

The Cosmic Kiss Cam

While we know that our sin will find us out, can I just caution us as Christians to view this with more self-inspection and sobriety than the rest of the world?  This exposure, and the shock and shame of it, is merely a shadow of the last day exposure of sin, not merely in word and deed, but in terms of motive as well.

This struck me this very morning whilst reading Luke 8, when Jesus speaks of the light being put up on the lamp stand rather than under the bed. We all know that bit. But what hit home to me – and it was in light of seeing a line up of pictures across social media of these two people – was what Jesus goes on to say:

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen. (Luke 8:17-18).

Nothing? Well what about my stuff Jesus? What about the stuff in my life that I would like to keep hidden? Is there a hall pass for that?  See the problem?  While this does not mean that we merely equate their adultery with other lesser consequential sins (humanly speaking at least), if at this point we’re simply doing comparisons with other humans, we have failed to heed the warning.

In other words, God has a cosmic “Kiss Cam” that will expose not just those naughty other people, and not just within a full stadium, but all of us and before the whole of creation.

Events such as this exposure should sober us and remind us of what is coming on Judgement Day. Not that we who are in Christ have anything to fear in terms of the loss of our salvation, but we are told that every mouth will be stopped on the last day and all will be silenced before God (Romans 3:19). Our sin will be shown up for its sinfulness in order that Christ’s holiness, and indeed his work of sanctifying us, will be seen as all the more glorious.

In a very real way, this unfortunate couple have played out in real time – and in quick time – what occurred to King David after he tried to conceal his sin when he slept with Bathsheba and ordered her husband to be killed.  Look at what the prophet Nathan said to him:

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” (2 Samuel 11:11-12).

God will expose before the watching nation, and in a manner particular to David’s own sin, what David has done. His own sin will be visited upon him in kind. And how and when did that happen? Well here’s what we read when David’s rebellious son, Absalom, asks his advisors how he can cement his role as a regal usurper:

Ahithophel answered, “Sleep with your father’s concubines whom he left to take care of the palace. Then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself obnoxious to your father, and the hands of everyone with you will be more resolute.”  So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he slept with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.          (2 Sam 16:21-22).

That is so out of left field that it is not funny. But I reckon there would have been a few memes made about it. And it fulfilled the judgement announced by Nathan.

We are told that our sin will find us out, we are told that all things will be revealed and uncovered on the last day. Sin blinds us to this fact, and numbs us to the shock and shame that that day will produce if we allow ourselves to be fooled otherwise.

This reality should jolt us into sobriety when we see a viral picture such as the one above. Or two pictures.

Exposing the Self-Righteous Sinner

But let me take you to another story from Luke that I read this morning in Luke 7, one in which a woman had been caught by the 1st century equivalent of the Kiss Cam at Gillette Stadium.  We read:

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:36-39).

Oh Jesus knew! He knew alright!  His response about forgiveness and this woman’s complete understanding of the forgiveness she had for her shame, puts the Kiss Cam, the spotlight, firmly back on the Pharisee, Simon (yes he gets named and shamed).

Jesus quietly deconstructs and exposes him for his own actions – or rather – lack of actions:

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:41-47).

Ultimately, why can Jesus pronounce forgiveness of her sins? Because he will become sin for us, the one who knew no sin (2 Cor 5:21).

He will hang exposed on a cross – naked – before a scorning, watching world that just can’t wait to start writing memes as the Cosmic Kiss Cam of God’s righteous judgement against our sin results in his exposure and ridicule:

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads  and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”  In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.  “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matt 27:39-43)

Jesus did that for us. If like that “sinful woman” we recognise it, then our first response to the exposure of the sin of others cannot and never should be mockery. So let’s dial down the memes, reduce the laughter and Schadenfreude, and in sober judgement remember the one who was cruelly exposed for every public – and secret – sin that we commit, and that will one day be brought to the light of the last day.