Thought for Today

Leviticus 7:13  With your thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being you shall bring your offering with cakes of leavened bread.  

Psalm 26:6  I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, 7  singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds.  

Ephesians 5:4  Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6  As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7  rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

For everyone who missed the memo, this Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. I don’t know whether or not I will write about Thanksgiving Day every day this week, but it is on my mind today. Not merely all the things that must be done beforehand to ensure that everything is on that table Thursday just as it must be on the table every Thanksgiving Day. I do love traditions. This is one of my favorite holidays (turkey and football!). We do have certain things, maybe specific to our family, which define Thanksgiving Day.

This morning, I am thinking more about thanksgiving more generally. The Greek word in the New Testament verses above, εὐχαριστίᾳ, is defined by my lexicon as “an attitude of gratitude, thankfulness, as act of giving thanks, thanksgiving, the Lord’s Supper.” (Gingrich, Greek NT Lexicon)

For many Christians, we hear echoes of that Greek word in our English word Eucharist. My Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines Eucharist as “A term for the Lord’s Supper deriving especially from Jesus’ prayer of thanks for the bread and wine, which he related to his body and blood given for those he loved.” This coming Sunday, our congregation will celebrate the Eucharist. Hopefully, we will all be aware as we do so that the celebration will itself be one more thing to add to the list of those things for which we are thankful. I’m sure that there have been numerous times in my own life when I celebrated communion on the Sunday following Thanksgiving. But, this coming Sunday may well be the first time I have been aware of the appropriateness of the two coming together.

I know that the U.S.A. is not the only country with a designated Thanksgiving Day. Our neighbors to the north celebrate it on the 2nd Monday in October. Other nations with Thanksgiving Days include: Rwanda, Netherlands, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Liberia, the United Kingdom. (worldpopulationreview.com)

As a nation and as Christians, we can (and probably will indefinitely) debate the origins and appropriateness of the traditions associated with Thanksgiving Day. We can (and probably will indefinitely) debate where Thanksgiving Day was first celebrated. Was it in Plymouth, Massachusetts? Was it in Charles City County, Virginia? Maybe it was in Nacogdoches, Texas (considered the oldest town in Texas, founded in 1779)? You can guess which I champion.

We do know that as President “George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, ‘as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God’" (en.wikipedia.org)

We also know that the apostle Paul wrote about εὐχαριστίᾳ, about thanksgiving. Christians know about how much thanks should be given to our Creator God. Thanks for Creation. Thanks for the gift of God’s Son, Jesus, the Christ. Thanks for the gift of God’s grace through our faith in Jesus.

The period each year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day is a short, intense timespan. It is a busy time, full of celebrations, parties, gift buying, gift exchanging, noise and confusion. It is also, for many, a time of nostalgia, sorrow and even grief. Thinking of Paul’s words to the Ephesians, it is also a time of “obscene, silly, and vulgar talk.”

This year, I intend to make these next few weeks a time of thanksgiving. A time of thanking God for all my many blessings. A time to remember and grieve those I have lost (some during this time period in years passed). A time to thank God for their presence in my life and for all those around me whom I treasure. Each and every day, I thank God for my life, for my biological family and my family of faith. On Thursday, during the football games, I will even eschew all that silly talk.

Stay safe, be deliberate in your thanks this week, trust God,

Pastor Ray