NIV Psalm 103:1 Of David. Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Now Thank We All Our God With hearts and hands and voices!
Who wondrous things have done, In whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mother’s arms Has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.
For more than three hundred years Protestant churches of Europe and America have resounded to the stirring tune of Martin Rinkart’s great hymn of thanksgiving, “Now Thank We All Our God.” The opening lines express the thoughts of the truly thankful Christian: “Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices.”
When you hear the song, you never realize that this poetic hymn of praise was forged under the weight of extreme tragedy and suffering. From one of the most severe human hardships imaginable during the “Thirty Years’ War” (1618-1648) came this grand hymn, often times called the national hymn of Germany because it has been sung so many times on occasions of national rejoicing.
Martin Rinkart, born in 1586, in southern Germany, was the son of a poor coppersmith. He grew up ion the same church that J.S. Bach would later become their musical director. Martin Rinkart worked his way through the University of Leipzig and was ordained to the ministry of the Lutheran Church. At the age of 31 he was called to be the pastor in his native town of Eilenberg. He arrived just as the dreadful bloodshed began. Because Eilenberg was a walled city, it became a frightfully overcrowded refuge for political and military fugitives from far and wide. Throughout these war years deadly pestilence and famine swept through the city just as methodically as the various armies marched through the town, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The Rinkart home served as a refuge for the afflicted and dying, even though it has been said that Martin Rinkart had difficulty in providing clothing and food for his own family.
The plague of 1637 was particularly severe. During this year Rinkart became the only pastor to survive the pestilence, often conducting as many as 40-50 funeral services daily. The toughest and most demanding of the funeral services, Martin Rinkart watched the plague take his own wife. In honor and memory of her, he wrote the most beautiful hymn of Thanksgiving that I have ever sung. In the midst of his feelings of anger, loneliness and sadness, he thanked His Creator and Savior.
What a great man? What a great pastor? What a great husband? What a great Christian? What a great faith that took over his life and raised him above the sights of pain, death sadness and poverty. What a great faith that set his sights on spiritual blessings of forgiveness, salvation, resurrection, heaven, eternal joy and living hope.
A common tradition for a Christian family at Thanksgiving is to list or count their blessings. My thanksgiving list starts with my wife and family. They bring me so much joy to my life, without them I think life would be miserable. Where does your list start? Or maybe it starts with your health, like my Grandfather’s list? Or maybe your list starts with your friends like my daughter’s list? Or maybe you begin with your toys – car, house, boat, land, and entertainment center, like my son Nathanael’s list? All of these thanksgiving lists are flawed. Yes mine is as well. They do not start where Martin Rinkarts’ list started. Rinkart lost his wife to the plague; yet he still gave a beautiful thanksgiving song to his Heavenly Father. Martin Rinkart had a good thanksgiving list that started “at the top” of God’s blessings: forgiveness.
Martin Rinkart is in good company with his list. King David starts his Thanksgiving List the same way in Psalm 103 “Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits: who forgives all our sins.” With Rinkart Let us “Now Thank We All Our God” with our hearts, deep from within, because in our Christian hearts we know that all his benefits include more than outward peace, prosperity, health and companionship. The greatest of all blessings is being called a child of God and sharing in the inheritance of the saints. Let our thanksgiving begin at the top. Let us remember and not forget, this greatest benefit: through Jesus Christ he has forgiven you all your sins. He regards and treats us as his dearly loved children. He daily forgives; He daily protects and He daily leads us heavenward. We always are in his blessings, from the moment of our first twinkling of faith in His Word to our last words of faith in our dying breath; God blesses his children with forgiveness and the gift of eternal life in paradise. Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices!
Thanksgiving begins with the heart. But not your heart as you might think. Instead true Thanksgiving begins with the heart of our Creator and Savior.
NIV Luke 7:13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don’t cry."
NIV Titus 3:3 At one time We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
God looked and saw our sin; our death and our fate in hell. He then opened his heart to us. His heart went out to us literally. He promised to make the ultimate sacrifice for us; His only son Jesus. Not only did he promise it but he kept his promise. Remember Jesus Christ’s words from the cross, ‘My God My God why have you forsaken me?” God did it. He broke the heart of his own son for you and me. He punished Jesus Christ for our sins. Our thanksgiving rightly begins with the heart of our creator that went out to us and was broken for us. Now thank we all our God with our hearts open in gratitude for our Creator’s loving heart.
Paul reminds us in Romans 10:8 that hearts and voices go together, just like Martin Rinkart wrote in his hymn, Now Thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices.” NIV Romans 10:8 "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming::9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
God’s directions in our OT lesson are about Thanksgiving. God ordered the Israelites to say “Thank you” when they entered the Promised Land. He even instructed them on the specific words they were to say “My father was a wandering aramean and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation etc.” We all have to remind our children at every Christmas present and every Birthday present, “What do you say?” What do you say to “Uncle George for the nice gift?” It seems that our natural tendency is to be ingrates: ungrateful people who are more interested in the gift than the giver. Or at best being thankful but not saying it. Being thankful without saying it doesn’t convey the message or please God. What is in the heart needs to spill out into words.
That is how God operated. Can you imagine what would have happened if God would simply have kept quiet when Adam and Eve sinned? Or how about what would have happened if God kept silent about the birth of a Savior in Bethlehem? No Angels we have heard on high. No shepehered running to the manger and then throughout the town telling everyone about the babe in swaddling clothes. Thank God his heartfelt love spilled out into words. The writer of Hebrews even says this NIV Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
The word of Jesus brings us so much comfort and assurance; life on earth is a horrendous place to live without them. Just imagine the comfort we have from Jesus words, NIV Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
NIV Matthew 9:2, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven."
NIV Matthew 28:20 And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
NIV John 14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
We have so much to be thankful for! What fills our hearts spills over from our mouths here in worship and every day in worship as we live in the Kingdom of our Savior.
Hearts feel and voices say …. But hands do. Thanksgiving needs doing! Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices! In Jesus miracle of healing the lepers – what do you suppose the leper did after he returned and thanked Jesus? What do you think he did with his new life? Or how about the man that had the shriveled hand? What do you think he did with his hand after he left Jesus presence? Or what do you think the blind men and women did with their new eyesight? Or how about the freedom the demonpossed received or the health the bleeding women received? What do you think all those people did with their great blessings? Wouldn’t every use of their new legs, hands, eyes, bodies, health and life be an act of Thanksgiving?
Notice again that true thanksgiving doesn’t begin with our hands or our doing but it started with God’s hands and his doing. Do you remember how God created the universe before he placed Adam and Eve into the middle of paradise? Let there be… he merely said the words and it was so. But remember how God made Adam and Eve? IT was a little different… Adam and Eve are handmade: Handmade by the immortal and invisible God himself. And the Psalmist confesses that God opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Frequently in the OT we are told that God’s right hand works salvation for him. NIV Isaiah 63:5 I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me.
The very hand of God worked salvation for us by being stretched out on a cross and hammered through with a piercing spike. The hands of Christ began to save us long before they began to bleed from the spike hammered through them on the cross. His hands continually reached out and comforted the broken hearted and bandaged the sick and healed the dying and yes even raised the dead. His hands broke the bread and lifted the cup before they were ever nailed to the cross. Those hands are proof for us today of the great blessing of forgiveness and eternal life that is ours. Remember Jesus directed Thomas to touch those hands that held the scars of love. Those hands will be seen again on the day of His return bringing us the greatest comfort and assurance that we will ever need.
We obviously have much to give thanks for on this Thanksgiving. And we have many reasons for doing it. The question always seems to be how. How do you use yours? Teacher, Pastor, Mother, Father, Nurse, Accountant, garden, farm, computer programmer, handyman, pilot, artist, scientist, secretary, hunt/fish, play.
We thank God with our hearts, certainly – for God opened his heart to the world of sinners. Without our hearts Thanksgiving is hollow. We thank God with our voices too – proclaiming our thanks to the God who spoke to us in love through His son. Thanks that is felt needs to be spoken. WE also thank God with our hands, the hands which he has given to us. His hands did so much for us – our hands are a living expression of thanks for the work of his hands.
NIV Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
