On the surface, Thanksgiving seems like a holiday designed to celebrate the American experience of material fulfillment. On the surface, at least, it would appear that what we do at Thanksgiving is to celebrate our wealth, our material prosperity, and our achievements. We indulge in an orgy of eating, telling ourselves that just once won’t hurt (although we will say the same thing at Christmas and at New Year’s and on just about any other occasion when the goodies come out of the oven). We give at least a nod in the direction of the poor and wonder aloud how it could be that in prosperous America there would be the homeless and the hungry. It would appear, on the surface, that Thanksgiving is designed to express to God our pleasure that we are well off, and to remind the Almighty that it would be awfully nice if He would do the same thing for us again another year.
But, I say, that’s just on the surface. Yes, we are grateful for the material blessings we have, and yes, we are concerned about those who do not enjoy them, but I have listened carefully to you over these three years, I have heard what you really care for, and I have found out that there is something else for which you are far more grateful than all the material goods you may have. I have discovered that when all is said and done, there are other things for which you are more thankful than the bank balance, the groaning table, and the calorie count.
I have discovered that it is the spiritual and emotional side of life that matters most to you. When I visit with you in your homes or at your hospital bed, especially in times of stress, you begin to talk about the persons that matter to you, you speak of the experiences of meaning which have come your way, you talk of your relationship with a God who has been intimately involved with your life. And while in a few instances that may have been because you thought that was the kind of thing you were supposed to say to the pastor, I would say that nine times out of ten you were expressing the authentic feelings of your hearts, you were telling the rock-bottom truth, that what gives you the most cause to be thankful has nothing to do with bank accounts, houses and lands, or even those new cars into which so many of you have climbed this year.
What gives you reason to be thankful is the richness and variety of your emotional and spiritual life. What prompts the greatest thanksgiving from most of us is the power of the bonds that hold us together as families, as church, as communities, as believers. The emotional and the spiritual.
“Pastor, I can’t tell you what my wife has meant to me for all these years.”
“Preacher, my father has been a rock of dependability for me.”
“I thank God for the people in my Sunday School class, who stood by me during my surgery.”
“What would I have done without the people of this church to help me when I didn’t have a job and couldn’t pay my bills?”
“When my husband died … when my wife left me … when my son got in trouble … when my daughter lost her way … God’s people were there for me, and I am grateful.”
That’s the kind of thing you say, at rock bottom. That’s the kind of gratitude you really have. Material things are fine and prosperity is wonderful, but, in the end, we are most thankful for that which is emotional and spiritual.
If that be so, then, let me offer you a glimpse this morning of the ultimate thanksgiving. A thanksgiving to surpass all thanksgivings. An expression of gratitude that goes well beyond any you have experienced or could experience in this life. Let me offer you a glimpse into that ultimate thanksgiving which the seer of the Book of Revelation envisions for us.
Remember as I read this exalted passage for you what the Book of Revelation is really all about. It is a vision of the completion of God’s purpose in history. It says, through all kinds of strange and wonderful symbols, that God is in charge of history. Don’t worry about all the peculiar images in the book; they are an exalted way of saying one simple thing: that our God is a victorious God who is bringing all of human history to a climactic moment. The message of the Book of Revelation is simply that the purposes of our God will ultimately be achieved.
With that in mind, hear the word of God and this ecstatic vision of the ultimate thanksgiving: Revelation 7:9-17
The ultimate thanksgiving.
I
The first thing I notice about the ultimate thanksgiving, which, like most of our thanksgiving, is a spiritual and emotional, relational thanksgiving. The first thing that I notice is that this thanksgiving will be done in a global and inclusive fellowship. This thanksgiving will be done in a setting in which all humanity is present, of whatever race and tribe, nation and people, language and culture. This will be an inclusive and global fellowship.
I have said that thanksgiving is for many of you a time to be grateful for the relationships that mean the most to you: family, church, friends. But consider how much more thankful you could be when in God’s good time you will find yourself engulfed in the wide scope of humanity, standing around the throne of the Lamb, and shouting the great Amen with peoples of all races and nations.
There is something thrilling about such an experience, and the beauty is that we can have at least a foretaste of it here and now.
Several years ago I had the privilege of traveling to Jamaica to meet with leaders of the Executive Council of the Baptist World Alliance in planning a special project. As we sat around a conference table to begin one of our meetings, the leader called for a season of prayer and asked one of the delegates to begin that prayer. I was a little startled when instead of something like "Our heavenly father", what I heard was, "Vater unser, wir bitten sie … ". He was praying in his own language, and although my college German course was good enough only to permit me to hear an occasional phrase or word, still I prayed. I found that a deeply spiritual experience. And around the table we went, each in his own tongue: Spanish, Russian, Yoruba, some I wasn’t even sure of, offering praise to our God. I don’t know that I have had a more profoundly moving spiritual experience than that.
It was moving, it prompted feelings of thankfulness, because it involved representatives of the whole human family. They did not have to give up their uniqueness, they did not have to deny their cultures, they did not have to separate into their own groups; they were simply united in giving themselves in praise to the Lamb once slain and now risen. And I tell you that in a small hotel room in Kingston there sounded the great Amen like the thunder of victory!
The ultimate thanksgiving will be one in which we find ourselves in concert with the whole human race, men and women of every race and tribe, every language and culture. I suspect that the way to get ready for that ultimate thanksgiving is to enjoy right now, at Thanksgiving 1989, whatever we can get of exchange and enrichment with people different from ourselves. I suspect that we will be a little startled and unprepared at the heavenly thanksgiving, when we are asked to sing praises with Orientals at our elbows and Europeans at our backs, African tribesmen on our right and Latin American peasants on our left, if we have not reached out to them in this life!
Recently there was an event here at the church which brought into this house persons of an ethnic group different from most of us. I did not attend that particular event, but was told that these folk seemed uncomfortable, standoffish, unsure of themselves, and that the sad part is that our own folks did not reach out to them or include them or work at meeting them. If that is true, I can only ask, "How will we feel at the great and ultimate thanksgiving our God has planned for us if those with whom we are asked to gather are strangers? How will we sing the great Amen with all nations if we don’t get a little choir practice here and now?" The ultimate thanksgiving is going to be done in an inclusive, global fellowship.
When we moved to Washington a number of years ago, one of my students at the University of Kentucky, who was from this area, wrote to encourage us to work at having friendships among all the different peoples who have settled in this cosmopolitan city. He said, "If you go to Baskin and Robbins with 31 flavors, you don’t just ask for vanilla every time. That’s boring." Yes, the ultimate thanksgiving will be one in which there is a vast throng, which no one can count, from all races and tribes, nations and languages, standing before the throne and the Lamb, shouting aloud, "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor, power and might, be to our God for ever!"
II
But this magnificent text suggests that something more will lead us to thanksgiving, something more than the cosmopolitan, inclusive crowd gathered around the throne of the Lamb. We will be led to the ultimate thanksgiving because we all will have shared the experience of deliverance. In the final analysis, the ultimate thanksgiving comes because we knew we were in trouble, all of us, and we have been delivered.
The elder says to John in this passage, "Who are these all robed in white, and where do they come from? They are those who have passed through the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
These are those who have passed through the great ordeal and have been brought through by the sacrificing love of Christ.
I don’t know today how many of you think of life as an ordeal, as a great and lengthy trial. I do know that for many people it certainly is; it seems to be an ordeal without end and without respite for too many in our world. I think of that terrible story that appeared in our newspapers this week of the young woman who took her own life and that of her three young children, and about all that anyone knows is that she found job and motherhood and a failing marriage too much of an ordeal to face any more.
There are many in our world for whom life is just an ordeal. I do not know how many of you feel that way.
But I do know that when you add up the score of human suffering, when you total up the sum of human unhappiness, every one of us faces a good deal of struggle. I know of no one who escapes entirely the ordeal of life, whether it be because you hurt, you are sick, you have lost somebody you have loved, or as you age you feel your own powers fading.
Or maybe it is that you have failed at something important you tried to do, or you felt cheated by a decision you couldn’t control, you feel guilty about something you have done, something you are doing right now.
Or maybe out there in the world you face opposition and frustration … it’s an ordeal just to go to work or to school or whatever … there’s no zest in it any more.
What do you do? At such a time, against all the odds, give thanks. Then, contrary to the wisdom of the world, give thanks! Give thanks, because the greater the ordeal now, the more you will be prepared for victory someday. Give thanks, because whatever you have to deal with here and now, in the day when God’s purposes are completed, you will know joy and gratitude all the more.
I find that the more people suffer, the more they are genuinely grateful once the suffering is over. The reason for that should be obvious. If you’ve never been sick a day in your life, well, you are thankful for that. But if you have skated close to the brink of death a time or two, life seems very precious to you, and you are profoundly grateful for every moment of it.
I do not want to be naive about this; I do not by any means want to suggest that we ought just to be passive. Above all, I would not suggest that you never stand up for your rights. But I would most certainly urge you to be grateful for every experience of opposition, every experience of difficulty, every ordeal, knowing that that sore trial will give you preparation for another day, another day when the purposes of God in your life will be accomplished.
For I tell you, on some great gettin’ up morning you will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with brothers and sisters who have suffered as well, and together you will look to the throne where there is a Lamb slain, crucified for us, tried and tested in every point, just as we are, yet without sin.
And when you know that we share a suffering like his and that he shares our suffering and our struggle, then you will know the ultimate thanksgiving and you will hear the ultimate promise that never again will you feel hunger or thirst, never again shall the sun beat you down or the heat scorch, never again, because the Lamb has conquered and will guide us to the springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
The purposes of our God will be accomplished, and we will be thankful, for we shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day. O deep in my heart I do believe … I know … that we shall overcome some day, and when that happens we will offer unto our God praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving, the ultimate thanksgiving, and honor, power and might, for ever. Amen.
