Plaxico’s Plunge

New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress has tumbled from athletic heights to the legal pits. All by himself, without other help or trickery, he has plummeted from sports page heroism to front page shame.

Plaxico discharged his pocketed illegal handgun in a New York nightclub, superficially shooting himself but mortally wounding his career. He broke the law and he violated the rules of the NFL. As a law-abiding player, he could have received $25 million over the next five years. Now, his reputation is shattered, his position on the Super Bowl championship team is likely gone forever, and his fortune commensurately shrunk.

One commentator suggested that Burress’ stupid indiscretion would echo in coaches’ warnings for years: "Don’t be like Plaxico!" We hope that eager young athletes will see that actions do have consequences and life has rules. When broken, the quality of one’s life may be permanently degraded.

Plaxico’s contemporary plunge is reminiscent of an ancient biblical tumble. I speak of King David, who held the high ground but took the low road. Residing in his palace well up the northward elevation of the Jerusalem, he had a natural observatory onto the lower elevations of his subjects’ yards. He went for a walk on the palace rooftop, and his wandering eyes beheld Bathsheba whose soldier husband was off besieging what is present-day Amman, Jordan.

Most know the story: immediate lustful adultery, a troubling illegitimate pregnancy, the summons of husband Uriah from the battlefield, his dreadfully plotted cover-up murder, and the hellish results for a lifetime. Read it all in II Samuel 11.

David remained the legal king, but he lived with moral wounds. Actions have consequences, and whatever a man sows, he reaps according to Galatians 6:7. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."

And reap David did. He had blood on his hands and a stabbing conscience. The baby died, his son committed similar serial sins on the rooftop and led a rebellion that deposed King David until the subversive boy died in the civil war.

Thankfully, Psalm 51 is drenched with God’s blood-bought forgiveness, but the David would say, "My sin is ever before me" (vs. 3). And so it probably was in his painful memory and wretched disease that clung to his body as Psalm 38:7 and 41:8 seem to suggest.

Someone once said, "We can live it up for five minutes and not live it down for fifty years." Many go sowing wild oats six days a week and then pray for crop failure on the seventh.

An ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure. God’s Word says of His judgments, statutes, commandments and fear, "...by them your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward" (Psalm 19:11).

In the context of Old Testament people who gave in to extreme stress and temptation, Paul wrote, "Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:11-13).

Good words for then and now.

Dave Virkler

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