If Richard Nixon taught us anything, it is that the cover-up is always worse than the crime itself. This past week, Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel finally resigned from head coaching due to numerous NCAA violations and infractions. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, for the last nine years, it would seem, Ohio State football players have been trading memorabilia for tattoos, cars, etc. This is a big no-no in college sports. But, this is not why Jim Tressel had to quit. Instead, a year ago when he found out about this he did nothing, but tried to keep the story quiet and tell his players to stop. Again, this is a big no-no but is not why he had to quit. Tressel's major transgression occurred in December when the NCAA found out about the players and they asked Tressel if he had any knowledge. Tressel lied, claimed this was the first he had heard about it, and tried to cover-up the last year of in house cleaning. About two months ago, it was discovered in the investigation that Tressel had known, and had lied to the NCAA. This was his epic failure.
Now, let's step over to baseball, and a few years back. Former Raleigh baseball standout Josh Hamilton squandered away the first five years of his major league baseball career by becoming a drug addict. The phenom cheated on his wife, threw away his career, all for crack cocaine. Through the prayers of family and ministry of pastors Hamilton eventually became a believer and became drug free. Last year he earned the American League Most Valuable Player award (the most prestigious individual award for an active player.) The relevance to Tressel, however, comes a few years back, when in his second season since returning to baseball, Hamilton agreed to go out to dinner at a bar with some teammates. Though he hadn't drank alcohol since getting clean, he had a few drinks that night, got slightly intoxicated, and was caught in a rather too-comfortable position with a few women at the bar. He had messed up. He had used when he shouldn't have (being a recovering drug addict and alcoholic) and was acting in an inappropriate way with women other than his wife. He knew he had failed. His difference from Tressel? The next morning he woke up, realized what he had done and immediately called his wife, told her what happened and asked her forgiveness. Afterwards, he called the team owner and manager and did the same. Hamilton didn't try to cover up his mistakes, but confessed to the people he needed to, received their forgiveness and moved on. Two months later, the story and pictures became public, and yet, it was a non-story. For when reporters confronted Hamilton, his wife, and his team, all admitted that they already knew, Hamilton had come clean and they had forgiven him. What could have been a major story, didn't even last a day on the news cycles.
As Christians, though we are saved from condemnation, though we are counted as righteous by the blood of Jesus, though we cannot lose our salvation but are secure in Christ, we still have lasting effects from the sinful life we led before Jesus. We also sometimes get lazy and allow new sin in our lives. We still fail. We still mess up. We are not perfect and will not be until glorification in Heaven. The lesson we learn from Jim Tressel and Josh Hamilton is that we must guard ourselves against pride and remain humble, recognizing how weak we are on our own power and constantly seek God's forgiveness and the forgiveness of those whom we sin against. We mustn't think that we can "get away with it" because this is an attitude contrary to the nature of the Spirit who dwells within us. Accept your failures, seek to eliminate them from your life. But live graciously and with humility. Confess your sin when it happens and avoid the inescapable spiral downward that lying and pride lead to.
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