Pardon Me, Pardon You
The healing powers of pardon do their work.
The death last week and state funeral this week of former U.S. President Gerald Ford brought forth a flurry of reviews of his life and his work while in the Oval Office. Most of these reviews mentioned that one of his first major acts as president was to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who was under a cloud of scandal related to the Watergate cover-up.
Although that decision was met with a firestorm of criticism, severely damaged Ford's early popularity as the nation's chief executive and probably cost him the subsequent presidential election, in retrospect, most observers now agree that the pardon spared the nation a major distraction and helped the country move on after Watergate.
Speaking this week in the Capitol Rotunda where Ford’s body rested, his old chief of staff, Vice President Dick Cheney, said, “It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe. Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon.”
It is of interest that Ford’s successor in the White House, Jimmy Carter, seemed to have understood the healing power of a pardon as well. As one of his first major acts, Carter pardoned nearly 10,000 men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
Pardon is not only in the language of the judicial system, but it is also in the vocabulary of the Bible. Simply said, relationships cannot thrive without pardon.
That begins with our relationship with God. It is based on pardon.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,’ declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:6-8).
First of all, for pardon to really be pardon, there must be a violator who broke a law. A criminal. In humanity’s search for spirituality, this fact must not elude us, that we have violated our moral obligation to keep God’s law of perfect love. The wicked and the evil are not only the pedophiles and murderers and terrorists and corporate frauds we read about in the headlines. If we are honest, we must admit our wickedness, evil, and sin. It may be less or more obvious but it makes us guilty nonetheless.
It is natural, and spiritual, for a person to evade the hopelessness, anxiety, and despair of guilt. But there is only one way that works. The Bible urges us to forsake all the ways that make sense to our imperfect minds and all the thoughts that seem like quick fixes for getting rid of guilt and, instead, go right to the source of mercy for pardon. To seek the Lord, call on him (because he is, after all, near to us and waiting to hear from us), turn to the Lord. He lets himself be found like an adult playing hide-and-seek with a 2-year-old. “Oops, you found me! How’d you do that!?” With delight the child smiles and comes in for a hug.
Seek God. He’s hiding from the naturally human ways and thoughts having to do with earning pardon and making himself plainly seen in the promises of his Word and the performance of Jesus.
“She will give birth to a son,” the angel told Joseph about Mary, “and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The mission of Jesus: pardon. Saving people from sins. People who turn to Jesus are his people. They’re not always the people who look good or have perfect church attendance records or feel good or have squeaky clean behavior reports. They’re people in need of pardon.
Dirty shepherds. Searching wise men. Scared prostitutes. Disciples as fickle in faith as they are eager in excitement. Busy professionals. Harried parents. Runaway youth and returning young adults. Babies. Skeptics.
Finally, to be pardon it must be free. No strings attached. God’s pardon is always and only free. There’s no pilgrimage required, no penance to perform, no criteria to meet or club to join. If there were, it wouldn’t be pardon, would it?
Freely forgiven by God, then, we freely forgive others who have hurt us. One theologian commented that forgiveness isn’t about forgetting but remembering. Remembering that God, for the sake of Jesus, forgives the person who hurt you, and furthermore, remembering that God has forgiven you. Remembering this makes it possible to begin the process of forgiving others.
And the healing powers of pardon do their work. God’s work.
PRAYER: I turn to you, O God of mercy, and confess my sins. I call on you, O Lord of promise, and believe in your forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Heal me from my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin. Give me a forgiving heart that does not hold grudges and manipulate people with guilt, but opens up to your love as it also loves others. Amen.