I am not fan of sports as I have mentioned in previous blogs. However it is hard to ignore the amazing amount of new stories coming out about both Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o and the stories of greatness turned to shame.
For Armstrong we see his greatness taken down by a decade long lie and Te’o’s story is just not starting to be pieced together. Both men seemed like the kind of men that others could look up too and aspire to be like. Only to find that both stories contain pieces of a lie.
Let me be clear though from the start, I think we all do this. If you have ever filled out your resume you know that there is a bit of shining that gets put on it. Your previous jobs always seem a bit more important than they really were and your responsibly in past projects always has you coming out like the shining hero. The only difference is that we aren’t famous and reporters don’t come digging for details in our lives.
i don’t think we should judge the men. Yes take the action that needs to be taken so that justice is served and lies are revealed, but don’t point fingers when we all do the same things in some form or another to make ourselves look good too.
We should stand back and realize that what we are seeing happen in the media is just a bigger picture of what the human condition is: this ongoing building up of idols to serve our purposes. However these idols always fail us and fall down.
Acknowledging this we have two options. We can either go and try to find another hero in the world that sounds and looks amazing and wait for their fall to come or we can go to the hero that has never failed and never will, Jesus.
The subject of idols within our lives is far to large a subject to speak about in only one blog post. So I would recommend that you buy Mark Driscoll’s new book “Who Do You Think You Are?”
So what does this tell us about the Gospel? That it’s real! That hero’s like Armstong and Te’o’s always fail us, but Jesus never does. Pray for both men and run to Jesus.
Pastor Mike Moore 