What’s the deal with this USA turkey pardon? Honestly, I didn’t even know they did this until this year since I haven’t watched TV since I was 14, but this jumped out as ‘highly interesting’ if not possibly masonic or similarly spiritually based.
First of all, the current updates on this annual ritual from our friends at wikipedia. This will show you that the ritual is alive and well and has been going a long, long time.
Now, it is very interesting to read this extensive essay on the turkey as a despised bird, if not targeted for abuse.
But above all of this, the thing that struck me most was the part about the ‘scapegoat’. As a student of the Bible I immediately, without even thinking, remembered some part in the Bible about the ‘scapegoat’. I remembered that annually (I think it was annually) the high priest would kill one animal for the sins of the people and let the other go. Let me confirm for you that I wasn’t making this up… yes, here it is in Leviticus 16, pretty much the whole chapter. As you can see, this is all happening on the ‘Day of Atonement’ which was an extremely important and spiritual day for God’s people. In verse 21 you can see the very clear ‘ritual’ associated with this event as follows:
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of he live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.
So, to me, this ‘Presidential Turkey Pardon’ ritual is rooted in something deeper than just a fun Thanksgiving tradition. One must dig into the roots of all traditions because one can unknowingly be participating in something unpleasing to God.
To me, at this point, I see this as potentially a mockery of this very important ceremony. First of all, there is no question that the President is put into the position of High Priest for this ‘pardoning’. It’s not the Pope standing there, although I’m sure he’s behind the curtains somewhere. It’s the President and he has been given ‘power’ to ‘pardon a turkey’. Instead, what he could or should have been doing is pardoning the people of the United States for their wickedness and asking God to forgive the nation and then subsequently releasing the bird into the forest.
Instead they forgive the bird itself.
And instead of a High Priest they use the High President.
That, to me, is mockery of God and his ordained ritual.
That, to me, is something I wouldn’t take too kindly too if I were the Law Maker.
That, to me, seems more like the pronouncement of a curse than that of a blessing.
But I’m just one man with a Bible….
