What Happened in Vegas…

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” they say.  The say it often because they want you to believe it.  But it’s not true.  I know.  I just got back from Vegas where I’ve been doing something I’m not proud of, and this time, it came back with me.

For years I have been going to Las Vegas.  I go for a convention.  It’s part of my job.  This year, it was no different.  I went to the convention as usual and found things in Vegas pretty much as they always are.  Although the city has a few good qualities, for the most part, it has earned the nickname of which it is so proud: Sin City.

It is a place where immorality is encouraged.  Excesses of every kind are the foundation of its success.  From the casinos, to the buffet lines, to the lewd shows and legal, advertised prostitution, the city stands as proof that greed and lust are deeply rooted in the heart of mankind.  Greed, and lust, and something else which showed its ugly mark in me this time.  And it was the prostitution that did it.

If you are a guy who has ever been to Vegas and walked down the sidewalk on Las Vegas Blvd, you will understand.  As you walk down “The Strip” as a single man, you will be provided multiple opportunities to procure your evening “entertainment.”  Groups of hooker hawkers stand on almost every corner.  Wearing t-shirts that say “Girls, Girls, Girls!” or “Girls to Go” they snap cards and brochures containing pictures of women showing off what they have for sale.  They snap the cards and slap the brochures just as you walk by so you will instinctively look and open to receive what they reach out to hand to you.  Sometimes it can be like running a gauntlet.

All these years I have managed pretty well.  I try not to look at them.  How disgusting that they would try to make a living by selling girls’ bodies.  What kind of job . . . what kind of life is that?  Indignation and disgust well up within me as I turn my head a little, and walk right on by.  I have survived that way for years, until this year.

This year, on the very last walk back to the hotel, on the very last night, something different happened.  Something different happened and I am ashamed.  Ashamed not at what happened, but that it had not always been happening.  This time, instead of looking away in disgust, I finally heard the urging to take a different approach.  As I walked past the t-shirt wearing hooker vendors, I prayed for them.

My heart melted.  All these years I had been a pharisee.  One of the proud scribes looking down in disgust at the sinners.  Jesus would not have seen them this way.  He would see them as lost sheep, in need of a shepherd. Victims of the devil’s schemes, needing someone to save them.  All these years I had been turning my eyes, closing my heart, and running from the evil.  Leaving those caught in its trap to fend for themselves.

By the time I neared my hotel, I approached one last group.  God could now manage to get through to my softened heart.  “Look them in the eyes as you pray for them, it’s what Jesus would do.”  I did, and it still haunts me.  She did not expect it.  She expected me to look at the brochure, not her eyes.  As I looked, I saw the shame and sadness.  She looked away and dropped her hand.  The brochure was not for me.

I still pray for those people.  The ones who’s bodies are not good enough to sell.  The ones who only hope to make a few bucks selling others.  They are lost and without hope, as are the women they sell.  But we are all lost and without hope, except for the blood of Jesus Christ.  Those of us who are blessed to have accepted Him have a great gift.  We should not hide it.  His light and His love will send the message, but only if we are willing to give up our self-righteousness, look the world in the eye, and share it.

 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”    
                                                         John 8:10-11   NKJV