Last week the President issued a pardon for the White House Turkey – a bird so overfed that its legs were barely able to hold its weight.  I know we were told it would be headed to Happy Acres Turkey Ranch, or some such place appropriate for pardoned turkeys (actually, they go to Mount Vernon.)  But the truth is these birds are usually dead within weeks of their pardons anyway.  These pardons are a holiday ritual, simply a piece of theater, meaningless.  But we accept the pardon of the White House turkey as part of the season, not unlike raising Punxsutawney Phil aloft every February 2.

            Some pardons are quite controversial.  President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, and President Bush’s (43) refusal to fully pardon Scooter Libby, created an uproar for each man as they left office.  Neither of these pardons was as controversial as the two that dominated the news in 1974.

            The first was issued in the spring, following Lt. William Calley’s conviction for 22 counts of premeditated murder.  Calley was the only member of Charley Company convicted for the atrocities that occurred at My Lai.  Although Calley was convicted by a jury of 6 officers, 5 of whom were Viet Nam combat veterans, the sentiment in the country ran high in support of Calley, and Nixon, harried by the Senate’s investigation of Watergate, was more than happy to oblige public sentiment and grant the pardon.  I remember my dad, himself a veteran, was fully supportive of the pardon.  I vividly remember (to this day) the 60 Minutes report on what happened in that village, and I wasn’t sure at all Nixon had done the right thing.

            Later that year (On September 8) Nixon himself received a controversial pardon.  Gerald R. Ford felt the nation had to move on from Watergate, and so pardoned Nixon without him ever having admitted he was guilty of anything.  I thought Ford was right about moving on, I was worn out by Watergate.  My dad, however, was so angry that Ford pardoned Nixon without any admission of guilt that he switched parties, and after voting republican for two decades, he registered as a democrat.

            In 1974 the pardon that was most on my mind was one extended in 1971 – to me, when I was baptized.  By 1974 I had graduated to more serious temptations, and sins, and worried I was seriously in danger of exhausting God’s well of forgiveness.  When you’re just beginning your teen years you can’t imagine that God will put up with your failures much longer.  Sometimes you feel that way when your teen years are decades in the past.  I know I’m not the only one who feels this way sometimes.  I’ve talked to too many of you, known that many of you have even felt the need to be re-baptized.  This need is not generated by doubt about the sincerity of your initial response, but because of the sins subsequently committed.

            God’s pardon is not meaningless, neither is it controversial – at least not to Him – and we don’t get re-baptized as a sort of booster shot.  We don’t deserve this pardon, but we have a right to it – the blood of Jesus makes it so (I Peter 1.18-21).  We must trust God’s grace, the power of the blood to cleanse, the work of the Spirit to sanctify, the promises made, the infinite capacity of God to forgive.  The pardons that Calley and Nixon received in 1974 absolved them of guilt before the law – but not in the eyes of the nation, or in their own eyes (both men were permanently broken in the wake of their pardons).  The pardon God gives does provide eternal absolution.  Will we have faith enough in the blood to repent, and to change?