Necessary Roughness

The details of the Chris Benoit story grow uglier. ABC News reports that the child may have been strangled in a choke hold.

Ballard called the crime scene in the boy’s bedroom “heartbreaking,” with wrestling action figures and a toy championship belt in the room.

“There was a Bible displayed beside the body of each victim,” Ballard added.

I grieve a little bit, especially for the child who had a genetic disorder and was injected with growth hormone to bulk up like Dad.

What Benoit did was a terrible and sad thing. He could have been a champion for Fragile X syndrome, like the famous people who take up MD or even autism. He could have retired, championship belt in hand, and come down from his steroid use. He could have done any number of things before taking the actions he took.

The placing of a Bible by each victim is an interesting puzzle piece. Did Benoit think he was saving his family from unspeakable pain? Did he kill them first, feel regret, then pray for them before he killed himself?

I have heard it said in conversation that suicide leads to damnation because one can’t ask forgiveness after committing the act. But who, really, has explicitly asked for forgiveness for every sin that they have been committed? Who knows whether Benoit asked for forgiveness before committing his deeds? The timing of forgiveness here isn’t really relevant; our Lord and Savior died for your and my sins thousands of years before we committed them.

As evil and sinful as Benoit’s actions are, we are also that sinful. It only took one act of disobedience to get Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. We have all sinned and fallen short. There is none righteous, no, not one, scripture tells us. The act of salvation had to be God’s. If we could do it, we would never have been really lost. If God can forgive us, he can forgive Chris Benoit.

There may be some good yet that comes out of this. Perhaps a steroid user was on the brink and ready to commit even worse violence, and this snaps him out of that and saves a lot of people. Perhaps others will recognize that loving money or one’s occupation has dangerous limits and step back. Still others will learn different lessons. God works all things for good. Maybe the mercy that we demonstrate here and now will cause others to ask about what God has done for us in spite of us. We should pray for the living and repent of our own sins, the same as we do after every tragedy.