This Is The Day Series

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling was a popular writer, and it was reported that he was getting ten

shillings for every word he wrote. Some students at Oxford University, who were not impressed

with Kipling, sent him ten shillings with the request that he send them one of his very best words.

He sent a cable back with one word, and it was the word, thanks. This is certainly one of the very

best words in the vocabulary of any person. Sometimes it is a battle to make it relevant, however. A

mother said to her little boy who had just received a bag of candy from the clerk, "What do you say

to the man?" The little guy responded, "Charge it!"

Saying thanks seems irrelevant to many who reason that if you get paid for what you do, thanks

is unnecessary. If it is a person's duty to perform a service, then he deserves no thanks. Almost

unbelievable is the fact that Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic, even applied this logic to God. He

said, "I never give God thanks for loving me, because he cannot help it, whether he would or no it is

his nature to." We can be thankful that the biblical writers came to no such cold conclusion. The

Psalmist, for example, knows God is good by nature, but that is the very reason for his thanksgiving,

and not a reason for withholding thanks.

It is God's nature that is the basis for His day of thanks, and in verse 24 we see the well known

verse so often quoted: "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Someone

put it in poetry this way: "This is the day, the solemn day, which the Lord God has made. In it we

will be glad, and joy shall all our hearts pervade." This verse is usually applied to any and every

day, and that application is valid, for what day is it that God has not made? People have put this

verse on their walls so that each morning when the awake they are reminded that this is God's day,

and they should use it well and rejoice in it. However, in this context the Psalmist is referring to a

specific day of celebration and thanksgiving.

Scholars are not in agreement entirely, but the generally accepted view is that it is written for a

day of rejoicing after the return from Babylon, and when the temple had been rebuilt. Ezra 3:10-11

gives us a picture of the attitude of the people at that time. "And when the builders laid the

foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and

the Levites, the sons of Aseph, with cymbols, to praise the Lord.... and they sang responsively,

praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For His steadfast love endures forever

toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord...."

It is a setting in which this hymn of thanks fits well, and scholars have divided it up to show how

it was sung responsively by different groups. The point is, the Psalm was written for a special

occasion of thanks, and though it is true every day is to be a day of thanks, so it is also true that there

are certain days in which we give special attention to thanksgiving. There is a danger in making too

much of special days, but there is also the danger of making too little of them. Without days of

remembrance of our heritage we will tend to forget. That is why Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper,

and that is why it is wise of us to set specific days aside for review and thanksgiving. Every Sunday

is unique in that we do what is not done other days. Holidays like Thanksgiving should also be used

as unique opportunities to praise God.

This is the day the Lord hath made;

He calls the hours His own.

Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,

And praise surround the throne.

Let us give thanks to the Lord for He is good. There is little we can give to God that is not a

returning to Him of what He has already given to us. Time and substance are God's gifts to us.

Thanksgiving, however, is a product of our own will, and to give God thanks is to give something

that is uniquely our own. That is why the thankful heart is so pleasing to God. We need to

recognize that the praise of God is not for the purpose of making man feel like an insignificant

nothing. The purpose is to give man assurance and security in the knowledge that in God he has a