WELCOME & INTRODUCTION
THE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS
[excerpt taken from National Geographic article by Erin Blakemore, Jan. 7, 2021.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/controversial-history-presidential-pardons-from-watergate-to-whiskey-rebellion]
A U.S. president’s pardon authority is as old as the office itself, but controversy over whether and how the chief executive should exercise the privilege has persisted since the nation’s founding. There is a rich history of pardoning controversial figures after their crimes and even before they’re convicted of federal crimes.
The framers of our Nation debated on this idea extensively.
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton proposed the president be given the power to pardon those who have committed crimes or reduce their sentences, later explaining that pardons might help “restore the tranquility of the commonwealth” in times of rebellion. The concept wasn’t new: English laws had long given monarchs the power to grant mercy to their subjects, and the practice extended to the governors of British colonies in America.
Most of the framers agreed with Hamilton. Article II of the Constitution gives a president “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.” The one exception enumerated in the Constitution is that presidents may not use their clemency powers to stop themselves or others from being impeached by Congress.
Presidents have four kinds of pardon power which apply only to federal—not state—crimes. They may issue a pardon that wipes out the crime entirely, shorten or do away with a criminal sentence with a commutation, release a person from a legal obligation like a fine with a remission, or put off a person’s sentence for a period of time, known as respite.
As it turned out, the first presidential pardons offered mercy to men who committed treason. In 1795, President George Washington pardoned two men who had organized the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising in western Pennsylvania in response to a costly federal tax on spirits; it took a militia of 13,000 to quell. Washington pardoned the last of the insurgents on the final day of his second term in 1797, indicating his “desire to temper the administration of justice with a reasonable extension of mercy.”
The tradition of pardoning rebels and polarizing figures continued through the years. After his election in 1800, Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of those convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798, a law passed during his predecessor's term that made it illegal to defame the government. Jefferson’s successors James Madison and James Monroe even pardoned pirates.
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln made another controversial—if unofficial—pardon when he refused to authorize the executions of 265 Dakota men in Minnesota. Suffering from hunger and repeated treaty violations, these men had attempted to drive white settlers from Native ancestral lands by burning settlements and murdering civilians. Between 600 and 700 settlers were killed in what was the worst massacre in American history; up to 40,000 fled the Minnesota frontier. More than 500 Native Americans were killed in retaliation.
Due to long-standing racial animosity toward Native Americans and the magnitude of the crimes, Lincoln’s decision not to order the execution was politically unpopular. But Lincoln, horrified by the unjust and unprofessional trials that led to the convictions of many obviously innocent men, said he “could not afford to hang men for votes.”
In the wake of the Civil War in 1865, Andrew Johnson, waded into even more contentious territory by offering a blanket pardon to former Confederates, with exceptions for those who had personally helped orchestrate the South’s secession from and war against the Union. Soon after, Johnson began exercising his clemency power with abandon as he granted personal pardons to those exempted by the blanket pardon.
Ultimately, Johnson granted pardons to up to 90 percent of applicants—more than 13,000 in all—including many high-level Confederate officials. By 1867, Johnson had pardoned “86 members of the lower house of the Confederate congress, a smaller number of the upper house, and perhaps a dozen Confederate governors.” Many of those leaders later became the architects of Jim Crow, the racist laws designed to re-establish a brutal racial hierarchy in the former Confederacy.
Pardoning power was put to the test during the nation’s most controversial pardon of all—that of a former president. In September 1974, a month after President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, his successor Gerald Ford granted him unconditional pardon for all offenses that he may have committed.
Ford believed the nation could not withstand the divisiveness of a potential criminal trial of the disgraced president. But his decision backfired, prompting a public and Congressional backlash, and is thought to have cost Ford his political career.
The Nixon pardon was followed by another high-profile preemptive pardon. On President Jimmy Carter’s first day in office in January 1977, he issued unconditional pardons to most people who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, including those who had not yet been prosecuted. Although the pardon was an attempt to heal the deep rifts caused by the war, it was condemned by veterans’ groups.
We could go on about pardons by more recent presidents: Bush, Clinton, Obama, and even Trump. But I am not wanting to dwell on every pardon but the reason why pardons are given. Why was the ability to pardon given to our presidents? We made a decision from the beginning that we needed to be able to show that we were not going to be like the heartless leaders of the past. We are at our roots a civil society. Our framers wanted to be able to grant and show mercy at times to show our heart for God and God shows us mercy every day.
In our beatitudes, we have talked about the heart of God in the early beatitudes that Jesus preached in his great Sermon. Those who are poor in spirit seeking to humble themselves. Those who mourn pouring out their hearts to God for comfort. The meek who do not seek adulation but look to serve others first. Those that hunger and thirst for righteousness because that is the sustenance we all need.
This morning, we go to the next beatitude. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 as we read our next beatitude.
MATTHEW 5:7
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
In all the previous beatitudes, the urging of Jesus is to live a particular way and those that do are blessed because their reward is something even greater than the act they are doing. The poor in Spirit receive the Kingdom of heaven. Those who mourn receive comfort. The meek inherit the earth. Those who hunger and thirst shall be satisfied.
In this beatitude, Jesus tells the people: blessed are the merciful, for the shall receive—mercy. Is Jesus really telling them that if they are merciful, they will also get mercy? But is that true? I know many instances in life where merciful people have been berated, knocked down, trampled on, abused, and have not received mercy in their lives. What is it that Jesus is teaching in this passage? Because it cannot really mean this can it?
Stick with me here. I promise we will sort this all out this morning.
WHAT IS MERCY?
So what is mercy? D. A. Carson wrote: “Mercy is a loving response prompted by the misery and helplessness of the one on whom the love is to be showered. If grace answers to the undeserving; mercy answers to the miserable.”
Theologian Sinclair Ferguson said, “Mercy is getting down on your hands and knees and doing what you can to restore dignity to someone whose life has been broken by sin (whether his own or that of someone else).”
The people of this ancient time in Matthew’s gospel knew mercy. They knew what they were taught about mercy. We heard the plea for mercy in our Scripture reading this morning. Micah, the Hebrew prophet, urged people to end their oppressive ways and to serve those lower than them.
MICAH 6:6-8 [NKJV]
6 With what shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah teaches the people of Israel and Judah rejected the ways of God to worship foreign gods and idols of the pagan nations. They forgot why they had become a divided kingdom and they were in fact only united in doing wrong. They no longer lived for God, but for themselves. At the height of Micah’s prophecy, he laments their ways and says to them a few things:
1. You come before the Lord insincerely.
These people continued to obey the rules and regulations concerning burnt offerings, but they only did it to follow the rules. Their hearts hadn’t changed! They came with young fattened calves, with thousands of rams; ten thousand rivers of oil. And yet they still sinned by worshiping other gods. Their worship of God was in vain because they continued to do what they wanted to do.
Micah even mocks them a bit in verse 7. He asks them, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression?” Isn’t this harkening back to the exodus from Egypt? The whole point of these sacrifices was to remember the God that brought them out of Egypt as the angel passed over the homes of those who did the will of God. The people of Israel and Judah believed that their past heritage in and of itself saved them as God’s people so they rested on that rather than treating God the way he deserved and treating the people around them justly and equally and selflessly. Serving their neighbors.
2. Micah reminds them what is good.
He says, God has shown you what is good. And it isn’t the requirements of the law. Those are there because you continue to forget the point of the law. Instead of living according to God, you rest on the law to carry your weight of sin. Stop sinning! There is an old MadTV skit when Bob Newhart was a guest on the show. If you aren’t familiar with MadTV, it was like Saturday Night Live, a variety skit show but with a different cast of people based on Mad Magazine—the one with Alfred E. Newman. In this particular episode, Bob Newhart plays a psychiatrist. He proceeds to tell the patient he only charges $5 for the first 5 minutes and then nothing after that. Sounds cheap right? Too good to be true. Well, Bob explains that his session won’t last the full 5 minutes.
Bob looks at his watch and waits, then says, “Go!” (the 5 minutes has begun)
The patient proceeds to tell her problem to Bob.
He says, Ok. I am going to tell you 2 words and I want you to listen to them very carefully, take them out of the office with you, and incorporate them into your life.
Ready>>>Here they are>>> STOP IT!!!!!
Of course Micah isn’t being this ridiculous, but he is being quite blunt about what the Hebrew people need to be doing. You know what is good. God has shown you.
3. What the Lord requires.
Micah tells them what God requires from them (3 things)
- Do Justly
To do justly, as Micah defines, is an active decision. This word for justly; justice comes from a courtroom-like situation. Micah tells the people to produce a verdict. This justice is the act of deciding a case and judgment. This is for a sentence from divine law including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penalty. The entirety of a court case from beginning to end.
People love this part of Micah 6:8. We are being asked to be the arbiter of judgment over injustice. We love this because we are deciding people’s fate. But Micah is telling them to act like they already live justly especially over those they are oppressing. Do what’s right. Except…
When it comes to God’s law, we don’t get to enact full judgment. In reality, if we love justice, all of us should be convicted of crimes against God’s law. We all break it and we are all guilty. It’s why we need God’s grace; why we need the Gospel of Jesus. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus has taken the justice we deserve.
Also, this word for justice is active. It’s something we should be doing in our everyday lives. Not something we do only when we are outraged or when we see evil happening. AND IT’S NOT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE! It’s about US and how WE live. Live justly in YOUR life. Not to tell others how to live theirs. Jesus spoke about this later in his Sermon on the Mount when he talked about the log in our eye but pointing to someone’s speck in theirs. It’s what we talked about when we brought up the Pharisees the last couple of weeks and how they were treating people and viewing themselves as keeping God’s law perfectly. It’s the parable Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector again. How the Pharisee listed his ability to keep the law and looking to the tax collector as a sinner who isn’t worthy of God.
- Love Mercy
The word here for mercy is hesed. This is human love and God’s love, all love wrapped into one. And it is about goodness, kindness, and faithfulness. Many translations use the word “mercy” but it really isn’t that word. It can be translated this way but it is the kind of mercy you give someone you pity. It’s really lovingkindness. It fits with what Micah is asking of Judah and Israel. You should love to show kindness to those who are less fortunate than you. This is the mercy Jesus showed those who couldn’t really live the way he asked them to. Like the people who were like sheep without a shepherd in Mark 6:34.
- Walk Humbly
Humility should be a manner of life; the way one should live. Go and be modest. Be willing to be lowly and show humility. Micah asks them if they are showing off what they have in order to retain their status in life or if they are willing to be nothing. Give it all away. Jesus asks the rich people of his day to do the same thing. If your riches are preventing you from following me, give it away. Many walk away sad because the reality is they like the attention. They like their wealth.
The reality is the people of Israel, the people of Judah, those who condemned Jesus, and even us today don’t follow these 3 requirements. Not really. We love the part about giving out justice. It puts control in our hands. And let’s face it, we love control. But, as I mentioned, this is God’s justice and if we all stand before God under our own merit, we would all be guilty and face our executioner. It is only because of Jesus we won’t see that kind of end.
We say we love mercy as Micah and Jesus preached, but there are so many times when we are not willing to show mercy because we want justice. What Jesus teaches in his beatitude is that we show mercy because we also want and need mercy.
Was Jesus really saying that if we show mercy, we will receive mercy? Yes. It is with the mercy we show that God will be merciful on us.
MATTHEW 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
MATTHEW 7:1-2
1 Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
We will be judged and measured by the same standard we use. But if we have mercy we will receive that same mercy. If our standard of judgment is to be merciful, God is going to see that and give us the same.
I think of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:
19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
The Pharisees were seeking reasons to kill Jesus and Jesus told them that they would be that rich man. They will beg to go warn their brothers. Abraham said they won’t listen even if someone should rise from the dead—which Jesus did. He raised the dead. He healed the hurting, the dying, the wounded, the sick. He forgave the sinner. And they would not listen to him.
It would be good of us to be merciful, not just because we ourselves need mercy but because the people of this world need mercy! Wouldn’t this be good news for the world around us if we were more merciful to those who wronged us?
That is what Jesus is teaching. Matthew 9:13
“Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus was referring back to Micah. Micah preached that the people needed to be merciful. Their sacrifices were in vain because they would leave their sacrificial time to go and oppress their neighbors.
How much mercy do you show? The amount you show is certainly a result of how much mercy you know. And I know so much mercy. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Paul reaches back to the mercy of the Old Testament prophet and says, be this way. The kindness, the tenderheartedness, the forgiveness that Paul speaks of comes from so deep within that it is as though it comes from in our bowels—it encompasses our whole being. Be this much merciful! Remember last week we talked about being fattened by righteousness? Being filled and satisfied and fattened? Make mercy the result of this fattening. That it comes from your intestines.
Mercy comes from mercy. Not just the mercy we want from God, but mercy to others comes because of the mercy we have received. I have been given so much mercy in life…it hurts. I have had times when I deserved so much worse but by only the power of God was I given another chance.
CHALLENGE
This week, I want you to think of someone who has done wrong to you. A neighbor who parked in front of your house, who got mad and yelled at you. A friend you are on the outs with. Someone who betrayed your trust. Someone in your family who isn’t living as Christ would live and has chosen sinful ways. Someone here in this church family you don’t really care for. And I want you to go and do a random act of mercy and kindness for. Take them some cookies. Bake them a bread. Mow their lawn. Help them with a home repair. Send them a gift. Send a card. Go give them a hug and forgive them. Tell them you love them. Because Christ loves you. Show mercy.
INVITATION
