Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow
Psalm 95:1-7
Ephesians 5:15-20
Thanksgiving Sunday
November 20, 2005
When the island of Cyprus was under British control, one of the governors exchanged telegrams with his father at the height of one of their political crises. The governor was asking advice for some difficult matter. His father, a member of the English Parliament and a Methodist lay preacher, cabled him back. “See II Corinthians chapter 4, verses eight and nine. Pit and Rock. Love, Dad.”
His son cabled him back. “See Romans, chapter five, verses three and four. Pit and Rock. Love, Mac.
II Corinthians 4:8-9 reads: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
Romans 5:3-4 reads: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
The Pit and Rock reference is to Isaiah 51:1: “Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the pit from which you were hewn.”
John Klingaman, my great-grandfather was born and raised around Bristol, Indiana. With the coming of the Civil war, he joined the 88th Indiana Volunteers and saw action in some of the fiercest battles of that conflict. I have a copy of his journal that he kept during the war and it is a fascinating look at the times and the struggles.
My sister has done some genealogical research and traced our family back four hundred years to Europe…Germany, England, and Scotland. When I was in Shipshewana, I started telling some of those stories. One of my ancestors was Abraham Schrock, a descendant of one of a pair of Amish brothers who fled Germany to avoid military service, and to find a new life in the New World.
A woman in the church in Shipshewana was doing some research of her own into her family tree and noticed that some of the names in their tree sounded similar to the names in mine.
Some of the Amish folks around town were telling stories about the father of John Klingaman who was captured by Indians in Pennsylvania when he was 8 years old and lived with them until he escaped when he was 21.
When I began to put all of this together, I remember feeling like I had come home. I had a truly ecumenical experience when I discovered that there are some Amish folks in LaGrange County who share the same roots as I have.
I have a picture of John Klingaman at home on the mantle above our fireplace. He is fiercely dressed in his army uniform; musket at his side, knife stuck in his belt, and full beard to cover wounds he received in battle. Next to his picture is one of my great-grandmother. They were married when he was 60 years and she was just twenty, and so she lived well into the twentieth century.
When I look at their pictures, I realize that they are part of a family which is responsible for my being in front of you today. They passed their faith down through the generations to sons and daughters and finally to me. Each of those generations has understood that the rock out of which they were hewn was the source of their strength. That Rock of Ages is almighty God.
So here we are to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the only holiday we have anymore that hasn’t been taken over by crass consumerism. Just about the only person who makes a profit is the turkey salesman.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to come together with family and friends to count our blessings and give thanks to God for all the goodness we have experienced. Somehow, this year is different. Ephesians 5:19-20 says: “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
If ever there was a year in which it is difficult to give thanks, it is this year. The threat of terrorism still remains an ever constant companion. Our nation’s son and daughters are in foreign lands and their blood is being spilled for their service to our country. The Gulf Coast continues, and will continue for quite sometime, to clean up following two devastating hurricanes this fall. Gas prices have skyrocketed giving us all plenty of things to worry about. We don’t yet know what that will do to our economy.
This morning, we come together as a community, as brothers and sisters in Christ. We come together to give thanks. Somehow, it seems like a disconnect. We sing the doxology here. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Praising God when we feel the blessings is not at all hard. Praising God when blessings are hard to see, is perhaps more difficult than we can ever imagine. Praising God “always,” as Paul instructs, goes beyond difficult and approaches almost impossible.
The Psalmist writes in Psalm 95.
“Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
We praise God because the rock out of which we have been hewn has become diamonds. The pit is more than just a dry hole, but has become a well of sweet, living, and life-sustaining water.
It is a natural tendency to think that the times in which we live are the worst they could be. We think that nobody understands our situation; nobody knows what it is like to be us; nobody can ever identify with our plight.
Remember, however, that the people of God have seen tough times before. The Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years facing hunger and thirst, wishing they were back in Egypt. They faced the seemingly insurmountable task of carving out a new nation in a strange land. Later, when they fell into sin, they fell victim to foreign powers and were exiled in a strange land. Being cut off from their nation and their Temple led the psalmist to cry out, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
Several hundred years later, they were conquered and occupied by the Romans. They longed for the day when the Messiah would come and reoccupy the throne of David.
In the early days of the church, they faced horrible days of persecution. First by the dozens, then by the hundreds and thousands, faithful Christians faced death for their faith.
In thirteenth century Europe, our Anabaptist brothers and sisters suffered horrible persecution for their beliefs.
We shouldn’t really be surprised when tough times come because our Lord himself suffered the slings and arrows of hatred, misunderstanding, and evil. The very Son of God was hunted, hounded, and executed on a cross.
We are surrounded, as the writer of the book of Hebrews says, by a great cloud of witnesses. We are truly not alone in our pain, suffering, shock, sadness, grief, and unknowing. The voices of faithful Christians throughout the generations cry out to us, proclaiming the faith and a message of hope in the madness.
We are thankful, and we don’t hesitate to praise God in these difficult times, because we know that the faith which kept our mothers and fathers will keep us as well.
We are people who have been hewn from the Rock of Ages. We may be hard pressed on every side, but we will not be crushed. We may be perplexed, but we will never despair. We may be persecuted, but the Lord will never abandon us.
Others may try to strike us down, but they will never destroy us. Though we suffer, we will rejoice because we know that perseverance, character, and hope await for the faithful.
So as you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner, give thanks. Give thanks for the blessings of life, liberty, and happiness. Give thanks for the feast that is set before you. Most of all, give thanks for the Rock out of which you were hewn, the Rock of Ages, the foundation of your faith. Give thanks for generations upon generations of faithful Christians who have gone on before, leaving you a legacy of trust and hope.
And give thanks to Christ, who faced death and rose to victory, assuring eternal life for those who remain committed and faithful. In all that you do, praise God from whom all blessings flow.
