Barry Bonds, Repentence and Forgiveness

I grew up a gigantic baseball fan.  My hometown is 30 miles south of one of America’s best – arguably the best – baseball towns, St. Louis.  That’s right, home of the reigning World Series Champion.  I’ve seen Bonds play many times and I was present for a few of Mark McGwire’s games when he was on his way to breaking the single season home run record in 1998.  I think I saw 59 or 60 – getting old, can’t remember.

Here’s my deal with the steroid or performance enhancing drug issue, because it very well might not be steroids, per se.  Bonds, Big Mac, the pitchers, several other players, NFL players, other professional athletes (like Lance Armstrong) may have all taken these kinds of drugs to enhance their performance.

Ultimately, this is an ethical and a moral issue for our society and our culture to resolve.  We have placed our sports heroes on a pedestal and asked them for too much.  We don’t completely know what any of these athletes were doing or to what extent they were doing it or why.  Very few, besides Jose Canseco have come forward to admit what they did and Jose seems to be doing it for financial gain and to remain in the limelight for some reason.

Here’s my question as a Christian leader and pastor.   Who is going to have a heart like King David in this issue?  It would be so refreshing for one of these athletes to humbly come forward, admit what they did, repent, and ask for the American public’s forgiveness.  It would be the right thing to do.  It would do so much for future generations of athletes in this country.  Future generations of kids considering taking cycles of the performance enhancing chemicals being developed right now that will help them become bigger, faster, quicker, better than they could be without – but becoming deader than they could be without them too.

It would just be awesome to see one person come forward.  And, I think it would be a house of cards coming down – one would lead to another, would lead to another.

Just my opinion.