Isaiah 12
“THANKSGIVING ACTIVITIES”
(You will want to substitute your own introduction--In place of my introduction, which is much longer and more personal than I would usually use.)
INTRODUCTION
When I was a child, my family would alternate Thanksgiving Day feasts and activities between the home of my Grandpap and Grandma Williams and the home of my Grandpa and Grandma Keller.
We lived in the country, near New Castle, PA, and the trip to the William’s home was only a one half mile walk or a one and one half mile drive. Thanksgiving Day would begin with my Mother telling me that I was too young and that it was too dangerous for me to go hunting with my Grandpap and Uncles.(A story I would hear until I was on my own at college.) When we got to my Grandparent’s home, I would play with my cousins and await the Noon time return of the hunters, hoping to get a rabbit’s tail or a pheasant’s feather. After they cleaned up, “Dinner’s ready” would be heard throughout the house. Blessing was prayed and the dinner feasting began. Our “Depression Glass” plates and dishes would be filled high with turkey, chicken, ham, stuffed pork chops, squirrel, pheasant, rabbit... Potatoes and carrots that had been dug from the garden, just a few weeks earlier. Rolls, spread with applebutter that I had watched my Grandmother and Aunts make in a huge, black, cast iorn pot--A mix of apples, spices and sugar that had been cooked over an open fire the Summer before. Creamy pumpkin pie…
After dinner, as we awaited a feast of leftovers for supper, I never tired of listing to the stories my Grandpap and Uncles would tell. Often my cousins and I would ask, “Can you tell us again about…?” I loved hearing stories about “The Good Old Days.”
The alternate year’s Thanksgivings would begin with the sounds of my Mother firing up the coal furnace. Before we could leave the house the fire had to be banked just right, hopefully, to keep the house warm and the pipes from freezing until we returned home late that night. Then we began a fifty mile drive, past some new and some familiar sights. Thoughts of Summer fishing trips filled my mind as Dad drove us over beautiful Slippery Rock Creek. For some reason a very large clock, located on the corner where we turned onto Route 19 in Zelienople, always caught my attention. I loved to ride over a certain bridge that caused the tires to sing, as my sister and I wondered if it would hold us until we got over the river.(We really did go “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house…”)
It was hard to know where to look when we crossed another bridge over the Allegheny, one of Pittsburgh’s three big rivers. Peering out the car’s windows I happily looked at the Heinz ketchup and pickle factory.(“57 Varieties”—WOW!) Then I would see a real island, and then large stacks, belching smoke from the steel mills that supplied the world with iron. I thrilled as we drove past the Drake’s Bakery, and I would always ask my Father to stop so that I could take a longer look at the flashing, neon Drake’s Bread Duck Sign. A cartoon-like, action sign that depicted the duck juggling about a dozen loaves of bread into the air, using only its bill.(Dad never did stop: For we were getting closer to his boyhood Squirrel Hill home. He had been born in a long cabin on Mt. Davis; but at a young age had moved to the “big city.”) When we drove past Forbes Field, the old home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and then past Schenley Park and the Phipps Conservatory, I knew we were getting close.
When we arrived at the Keller’s house in the city of Pittsburgh, after warm hugs and kisses, the usual first question was, “Any flat tires?” Then my Grandma would be asked, “What time did you put the turkey into the oven?” My sister and I would then rush to play with cousins who had usually not been seen since the Fourth of July reunion picnic on Mt. Davis.
Grandma already had the dining room table set. Polished silverware gleamed next to her “George and Martha Washington” china. China that was accompanied by real water goblets. As the smells of the turkey beckoned my cousins and me to the kitchen, we would watch my Grandpa put the boiled potatoes through their big, old potato ricer. Grandma making the gravy was the final sign that the feast was about to begin. Large Pittsburgh telephone books would be placed on the chairs of the youngest cousins to boost them up to table level. Grandpa would pray the blessing and Grandma would say, “I hope you are hungry.”
As the dishes were passed, our plates were filled with turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, dried-cracked-corn-casserole, green peas, and fresh bread from the bakery to which my Grandpa had walked that morning. Before long the empty plates were replaced with smaller plates that we filled with pumpkin pie, cake--covered with mounds of white frosting, fruitcake and plum pudding that had been cooked by the ladies in Grandma’s church.
While the ladies washed the dishes and talked “lady talk,” the children would gather in the living room to listen to our Uncle’s and Grandpa’s stories of “The Good Old Days.” Once more the words, “Tell us the story again,” or “Tell us about…” were heard.
Now that you are beginning to think of your “Thanksgivings Past,” your heritage; and now that you are about starved to death--May I ask you, “What are your Thanksgiving traditions? What do you remember from your past? What do you want your children to remember?” God, family, and country were always a very important subject at every Thanksgiving table over the years of my childhood, and the same holds true today.
The Prophet Isaiah, who we all know told of the coming Messiah, told Israel that there would come a time that called for great thanksgiving and praise. In this Chapter 12 of Isaiah, the prophet instructs Israel and us in four important ways to show thanksgiving to God for His many blessings. 1. PRAISE. 2. PRAY. 3. PROCLAIM. 4. SING AND SHOUT. These activities should just not be Thanksgiving activities, but are activities that we should do and teach our children to employ every day of the year.
I. PRAISE (v. 1-3)
First on our list of praise, is our gratefulness for a loving God who forgives our sins. When we accept Jesus’ love, God’s anger is “turned away” and we are greatly “comforted.” The more that we learn to “trust” God the less we will “be afraid.” Our lives will sing of His salvation and day by day, as we learn to rely upon His “strength.” “With joy,” we delight in His bountiful salvation and wonderful love that quickly and completely forgives our sins. Isaiah speaks of how God “comforted” him. Reading his words reminds me of how I always felt safe and secure in the safety of my Country and my City Grandparents. Many years ago they died and went to Heaven to be with Jesus. No longer can I depend upon them for help, love, and comfort. I am not hopeless, for I serve a God who has always been and always will be alive. God is my Father and I know that I am loved. I can cast all of my cares and burdens upon Him for I know that He is the Eternal One and He will never stop loving any of His children.
II. PRAY(v. 4b)
Isaiah reminds us to, “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name…” How long will it take us to learn to pray first and then begin to work out our problems God’s way? My memories of my Grandfathers remind me of strength and hours of hard work. Memories of my Grandmothers remind me of lots hard work, great love and comfort. What do our children think of when they think of us, their parents? I can not remember a meal that did not begin with prayer. Isaiah reminds us that prayer should always include thanksgiving. Do our friends and children think of us as contented with the will of God and as thankful Christians?
Recently, I finished reading JOHN ADAMS, David McCullough’s biography of Massachusetts’ native son John Adams. The huge book is filled with accounts of Adam’s love for his God, his wife Abigail, his family, his farm, his friends, his books, and his country. His unselfish service and his family’s unselfish and costly service to his country brought long separations from the things that he loved. They built the foundations for the freedoms that we enjoy today in the USA.
Adams often had to leave his home and family for long stays in France, Holland, England, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. His favorite book was the Bible and his favorite passages seemed to come from the Psalms. There he was reminded that when things went wrong, that the Psalmist would pour out his problems to God in prayer and that God would hear and help. The Psalmist would then rejoice. Whether Adams was facing misunderstanding because of his principles, financial hardship because of his service, loneliness, illness, or other trials, he knew that God was in charge and that God could be trusted.
In the book, McCullough writes that, “1811 was to be an almost unbearably difficult and painful year for the Adamses, indeed, ‘the most afflictive’ year they had known.” In April, a son Thomas was thrown from a horse and received so many injuries that they thought he would be crippled for life. Mary Cranch, Abigail’s dear sister was suffering from tuberculosis and “appeared to be dying. Then, Sally, Charles(his son’s) widow, began spitting up blood…” and was ill for about four months. “Adams tripped over a stake in the ground and ripped his leg open to the bone, so that for months he too was confined to the house, a doctor ‘daily hovering’ to bathe and dress the wound.” Then their daughter Nabby developed breast cancer and had to endure a painful mastectomy. “The agony she endured in that day before anesthetics is unimaginable.” “Two days later…Richard Cranch died of heart failure… and the day following, Mary Cranch died…” Adams said that he felt “as if he were living in the Book of Job.”(Pages 917-919)
His wife Abigail was a pastor’s daughter. Her father’s teaching, her regular reading of the Bible and literature, her faithful public worship, and everyday life’s experiences, all taught her that God was a concerned Father to whom she often went for help, understanding, and comfort. After 54 years of marriage, at age 74 she died. Following her death Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson the following words:
“I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence [he continued], and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe, this all, this…[“totality”] would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.”(Page 952)
Do our children see us turning to God in prayer when the trials of life sweep over our families, our country, and our world?
III. PROCLAIM(v.4c)
Isaiah instructs Israel, as Jesus instructed the church in the Great Commission, to, “make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.”
As Americans, we have so much for which to be thankful. Plymouth is only a short drive from here. Braintree and Quincy, the home of the Adams family a few miles further. We thank God that our country was founded by men, most of whom, had a strong belief in God, His laws, and the knowledge that one day they would stand before God as their Judge.
McCullough writes of John and Abigail Adams’ faith after several deaths, trials, and the onset of old age:
“Jefferson had earlier sent Adams a ‘Syllabus’ he had prepared on the merit of the doctrines of Jesus, and a discussion of religion had since filled much of their correspondence. Now Adams wrote to Jefferson, ‘The love of God and His creation, delight, joy, triumph, exultation in my own existence…are my religion.’
“Emerging from her grief, Abigail was writing to John Quincy[Adams] of the blessings still left to her. High on the list, she said was ‘the life, health and cheerfulness of your father. Bowed down as he has been… he has not sunk under it.”(Page 936)
Our lives and our faith in God and our active thanksgiving to Him for salvation and for all else, should be witnesses to our families and to our world of the grace and power of God.
Wednesday, at our Falmouth Community Thanksgiving Service, a Governor’s proclamation of Thanksgiving will be read. Daily, our lives and words must proclaim and exalt the name of our Lord to family and world.
IV. SING AND SHOUT(V.5-6)
Our Biblical forefathers believed in and trusted God. America’s forefathers all had faults, but it seems that a large majority were active worshippers of God. The church and the home were the most important buildings in most early American towns.
Adams wrote: “The doctrine of human equity is founded entirely in the Christian doctrine that we are all children of the same Father, all accountable to him for our conduct to one another, all equally bound to respect each other’s self love.”(Pages 943-944) He tried his best to free the world of slavery and to usher in an age were man recognized that all men were created equal. As a young man and in old age he forgave those who had lied about and mistreated him. He readily admitted his many sins and trusted God for forgiveness and Heaven. He wrote to a friend:
“I damn nobody. I am an atom of intellect with millions of solar systems over my head, under my feet, on my right hand, on my left, before me, and my adoration of the intelligence that contrived and the power that rules the stupendous fabric is too profound to believe them capable of anything unjust or cruel.”(Pages 933-934)
Our songs and hymns tell of the wonders of God’s gift of salvation. Our lives should “sing” and “shout” that Christians are different. We are humans, but humans who love everyone and live in peace with God.
CONCLUSION
The stories of America’s Thanksgivings and of Israel’s Thanksgivings are songs of dangers, toils, and snares: Through which godly people have made it by the grace, love, and power of the Holy Spirit. In a letter to Benjamin Rush, a friend of John Adams, he wrote that:
“The admonition ‘rejoice ever more’ would ‘never be out of my heart, memory, or mouth again as long as I live, if I can help it.’ This he had said, was his ‘perfectibility of man.’ Now to John Quincy[Adams] he wrote, ‘Rejoice always in all events, be thankful always for all things is a hard percept for human nature, though in my philosophy and in my religion a perfect duty.’”(Page 934)
Today, I have shared a bit of the heritage that my parents and grandparents left implanted in my memory and some of what Isaiah taught us to do, and how John Adams put it into practice. We all have a rich heritage as Christians and as Americans. May we, with God’s help, starting this Thanksgiving Sunday, create a rich Christian heritage for our children and for all who come after our brief stay upon this earth. May we ever live out the motto of Church and of the United States of America--“IN GOD WE TRUST.”
(Bible quotations from the NIV.) (JOHN ADAMS, written by David McCullough, 2001, Thorndike Press, Waterville, Maine.)
(Ron Keller)
