Scripture:
Psalms 100
A Psalm of Thanksgiving. Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He [is] God; [It is] He [who] has made us, and not we ourselves; [fn] [We are] His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, [And] into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, [and] bless His name. For the LORD [is] good; His mercy [is] everlasting, And His truth [endures] to all generations.
Comes now the season we know as Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving: that most unique of American holidays. From the time we are old enough to understand it, we look forward to it.
Now, to be sure, the food holds a special place for us. Think back to your past Thanksgivings and the way you couldn’t wait for your favorite dish, like turkey. Back in the old days, before the health benefits of it were discovered, getting turkey was a special event. Or maybe it was the pecan pie, the stuffing, the green bean casserole.
And then, of course, there were the side benefits of the holiday – seeing aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and the football games. Not to mention the 2-day break from school. Ah, to sleep-in.
Today, it’s different. Oh, we still have the food, the family gathered together, the parade, the football games, and even 3 extra days off from school. But, over the past decade or so, Thanksgiving Day has become just a strategic starting point for the start of the Christmas season. Now, Black Friday has almost taken the place of Thanksgiving. We do an awful lot of complaining about the commercialization of Christmas, but look what we’ve done to Thanksgiving!
Historically, Thanksgiving has been known as a religiously themed holiday; even the name itself implies that.
Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common within almost all religions. Most of them center around the harvest time. Here in North America, the U.S. to be exact, the day has roots in traditions established in England during the Protestant Reformation.
During the reign of Henry VIII the king and the Catholic Church had, might we say, a small falling out. The Catholic calendar called for 96 church holidays when people were required to attend services, stay out of work, and sometimes even pay for the celebration. Add to that the 52 Sundays, and it took a lot of time out of the work year. Reforms instituted in 1536 reduced the number to 27, but some it was good enough for the Puritans and other reformers. They actually wanted to eliminate all religious holidays, including Christmas and Easter. They wanted to replace them with special Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving. These days would be in response to what the Puritans saw as acts of God. When disasters hit, Days of Fasting would be held. In 1611 there was a severe drought, and Days of Fasting were set. The same was true when the plague hit in 1604 and in 1622. On the other hand, when the Spanish Armada was sunk by a sudden storm in 1588, Days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed.
Our Thanksgiving tradition is traced to the Pilgrims and a 1621 Thanksgiving feast to celebrate a good harvest. As more Pilgrims came in the next few decades, they brought the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them. By the late 1660s, the practice of one Thanksgiving celebration gained some ground.
The early proclamations were made by church leaders, with civic leaders taking more of the task in the 1700s. By the time of the revolution, military leaders shared the duties. Revolutionary leaders issued several proclamations for everyone to give thanks to God for His guidance through those days.
President Washington issued the first nationwide proclamation. November 26, 1789 was to be set aside "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God."
The tradition continued through the years, with states setting their own dates. By the early 1800s most states were using the last Thursday of the month. The first nationwide setting of a firm date was done by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He was influenced by Sarah Josepha Hale, the lady who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Mrs. Hale had been after politicians for about 40 years to make Thanksgiving an official holiday. Lincoln used the day to bring about a sense of unity between the North and South. Of course, the sense of unity didn’t fully come to fruition until after Reconstruction.
Here is how Lincoln’s proclamation begins:
"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God."
He goes on to talk about the deprivations of the civil war, but also about the blessings that had been bestowed upon the Union. Then, he circled back to the theme of God and His watchful eye.
"No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."
What words! Compare those with Washington’s plea for the citizens of the nation to thank God for their blessings. How close they are to the passage that I read at the beginning of this lesson. Or to some of the “thanksgiving passages” found in the scriptures.
Ps. 50:14 Offer to God thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High.
2 Cor. 4:15 For all things [are] for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.
Col. 2:7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
Now, think about this: In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt had issued a proclamation moving the date to the fourth Thursday of November, which wasn’t always the last, to give the country an economic boost. In 1941, Congress passed legislation making Thanksgiving a national holiday on that fourth Thursday of November.
The date we use was set specifically for commercial reasons. Does that really surprise us? Back in the late 1800s, author and journalist E.P. Powell made this somewhat prophetic statement: “Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.”
How far we have slid down the slippery slope, away from the Father, away from a true understanding of just what the day was meant to be.
Think about the name – Thanksgiving. What does that name, that word actually, bring to mind for you? Let’s begin by breaking it apart – thanks and giving. Now, we can get a better sense of its meaning.
Thanks. According to Merriam-Webster, it is “kindly or grateful thoughts; an expression of gratitude.”
But listen to this other definition: “Thanks is an attitude of an expression of thankfulness.” There’s that pesky word again – “attitude.”
“Thanks” is a word we use every day, sometimes without even thinking. Someone holds the door, “thanks;” we sneeze, someone says “bless you,” and we say “thanks.” That’s built off that first definition. When we REALLY want to thank someone, you use the long form, “Thank You.”
But see, thanks is more than just saying the word. It is an attitude we have. In Psalms 100:4, after telling us to enter into God’s gates with thanksgiving, he then tells us “to be thankful to Him, and bless His name.” It’s more than just saying thanks, or even thank you, it’s an attitude of thankfulness, a heart full of it.
And that’s where the second part of “Thanksgiving” comes in.” Listen to a definition of this word: to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation.
Give is a verb, giving a form of that verb. The word denotes action and requires action on our part. In the scriptures, the phrase “give thanks” is used 39 times. The vast majority of those instances deal with giving thanks to God.
Therefore I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the Gentiles, And sing praises to Your name. 2 Sam. 22:50
Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! 1 Chronicles 16:8
We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, Colossians 1:3
in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Now, let’s go back and put the two words together. Thanksgiving – we are thankful, we have an attitude of thankfulness, and we are giving that thanks away, not expecting it to be paid for or even recognized. That is what Thanksgiving should be.
Thanksgiving Day is a wonderful time, I like the holiday. I’ll enjoy time with the family, the food, and even some of the football games. I’ll enjoy the long weekend. And, yes, I will be up Friday morning doing a little Black Friday shopping. I’ll probably do some on the computer as well.
But the challenge for me, for all of us, is to work hard to get away from the President Roosevelt Thanksgiving Day model and move closer to Lincoln and Washington. This is not a “religious” holiday, per-se. It is, however, an opportunity. This day is a God-given opportunity for us to show the world our focus. We don’t want to be somber, dressed-in-black Puritans, but we do want to have that attitude of thankfulness, and be willing to give our thanks to the One who’s made the feast, the family, the friends, the football, and all that this Thursday will bring possible.
Our challenge is also to carry the spirit of the day onward to Friday and the day after and the day after. Another very wise man, Robert Casper Lintner, said this: “Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.”
In Revelation 4:9-11, John says this:
Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: "You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created."
That’s quite a reaction to such a simple thing as “thanks.” But remember that it’s not such a simple thing to the Creator of the universe. It fills His heart with gladness to know we care.
Most everyone in this room understands this, and our thanks isn’t limited to just Thanksgiving Day, or Sunday, or any other special day. But as we look at this day, at the way the world has turned it upside down, we should double our efforts to bring the world back into a better focus – one person at a time.
