Thanksgiving
Dear friends in Christ. When you think of Thanksgiving Day, what do you think of that makes the perfect Thanksgiving? Is it the time with family or friends and all the conversation and all the attendant sentimentality? Is it the big meal with all the traditional favorites—and maybe a few new ones? Is it watching on TV the parade or the football game? What, in your mind, just screams and makes for the perfect Thanksgiving?
Although not an official state declared day of Thanksgiving, our text comes from an account of a day of thanksgiving about 4200 years ago by the patriarch Jacob. If you remember your OT history, God promised old and childless Abraham that the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, would be one of his descendants. Many years later Abraham and his wife Sarah have a son, Isaac. Isaac eventually has twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Although the Lord had said that Jacob would be Jesus’ ancestor, Jacob still tricks his father to get the birthright. After doing that, he fears his older brother Esau and flees to his mother’s family. There he marries and has children and becomes wealthy. After 20 years Jacob returns to his homeland, Canaan, the land the Lord promised to give him and his descendants so that the Savior would be born there and there bring about the salvation of the world. But Jacob is still afraid of Esau fearing his wrath, so he divides all the people and animals with him into 2 camps or groups thinking that if Esau attacks one of the two groups the other would have a better chance of escaping. But Jacob doesn’t think His prudent action is enough, He brings the matter to the Lord in prayer.
That’s where our text comes in. Somewhere near where the Jabbok River and the Jordan River meet is “Jacob’s Thanksgiving.” Jacob’s prayer is a true, right and proper thanksgiving; it is a truly right and proper Thanksgiving Day—even though it had none of the trappings we usually associate with Thanksgiving. In His prayer, and specifically in our verse, we find Jacob pondering all his many blessings— for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps –and recognizing they are all gifts of God’s grace and that he’s worthy of none of them— I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant. That’s a right, proper attitude for Thanksgiving. Only when our hearts are that way can and does true thanksgiving to the holy Triune God flow from them.
As we celebrate a day of national thanksgiving tomorrow, we are at least given the opportunity to stop, pause and ponder the great blessings God has given us over the past year/ years. But what is happening? Thanksgiving is being more and more shoved into a corner. Thanksgiving is really becoming anything but a day for stopping, pondering, reflecting that leads one to recognize all our gifts and blessings. Are the increased distractions—the busyness, the sentimentality, the stores now opening for Thanksgiving, the emphasis on that non-descript early winter holiday formerly known as Christmas—really a Satanic attempt, which finds a willing ally with our old sinful nature, to keep us from pondering and thinking that all we have is a gift of a gracious God? If we are totally honest with ourselves, we will see that all we have is a gift of grace to us by God, that we are not self-made people, that everything we have we did not earn but that it was a gift. Pondering how richly we have been blessed leads—if we are honest—to the recognition and confession of Jacob: I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant. And that Satan cannot abide!
In other words, rightly pondering our blessings—in faith— leads us to confess our sinfulness, which drives us to the grace of God, which leads us to our Savior from sin. That’s precisely God’s intent. Listen to what He says through St. Paul [Rm. 2.4]: Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? What is the devil’s tactic, in cahoots with the sinful world around us and our old sinful nature within us? –To keep us from pondering; and to fill our lives with everything but true thanksgiving and telling us it is true thanksgiving; but in reality it is a sham; just the foam but not the beer.
Although tomorrow is the national day of thanksgiving and gives us the opportunity and reminds us of it, any and every time is a time for thanksgiving—like here Jacob when he is in danger. He turns to the Lord in prayer and as he does so, his mind right away goes to the Lord’s graces and blessings and to his own unworthiness. That’s the true blessing in pondering our Lord’s graces and gifts to us—anytime, not just tomorrow. If we are honest with ourselves as we reflect on how good and gracious the Lord has been to us and yet how faithless and sinful we have been, we have to exclaim with Jacob in our text: I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant. It is precisely our sin that makes us unworthy of any gift/ blessing from the Lord, but He gives them to us all anyway by grace. In fact, it has to be all by the Lord’s grace. After all, we are conceived in the womb already sinners and when we are born we are sinners and daily add to that sin. If we then recognize our sin and that in spite of it the Lord still gives us what we need for our earthly life—some more, some less—we can do nothing but sing the Lord’s praises for His steadfast love toward us and the truth which He revealed to us. If we recognize our sin, like Jacob here does and say like he does here: for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps, we then have the right and proper perspective toward the blessings and gifts our Lord has given us: in spite of my sin and unworthiness, God has blessed me; it’s not my work and my worthiness that I have been so richly blessed but it is, instead, God’s kindness and truth. There’s thanksgiving!
And if I recognize God’s steadfast love toward me, a poor, miserable sinner, and that He blesses me anyway because He has promised to provide, sustain and preserve His creation, then certainly I can trust His promise to forgive me all my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness as He has promised in Christ; then I know that what He says and gives to me in His word and absolution is certain and sure; then certainly I know He will be faithful to the promise He made me at baptism and will work all things for my spiritual good and bring me one day safe to Himself in heaven. God’s goodness and faithfulness to us in earthly, temporal matters—that He so richly provides what we need for daily life—is a glorious object lesson to us of His gifts and graces to us through Christ. Though we are unworthy, He gives them to us fully, freely, abundantly. By God’s grace, through faith, we came to faith; we have His word pure and untainted; we have forgiveness through Christ’s blood and the blessed hope of heaven.
Just as all we have physically, earthly is all from God’s pure goodness and mercy without any merit on our part, so too we have to confess that our new life, our salvation, our “godliness”, our faith is not our own work or doing; instead, it is the gift and grace of God. For our day of Thanksgiving tomorrow and beyond, let us not just focus on the earthly blessings, but let us also look at our spiritual blessings which Jesus brought about for us and richly gives us.
Like Jacob on that day 4200 years ago, our gaze on Thanksgiving—and the reason why we can be thankful—turns to God’s faithfulness and His steadfast love.
The truly God pleasing Thanksgiving tomorrow—and every day—is rightly a sacrifice of thanksgiving. No, this is not a sacrifice by which we try to placate God and earn our way into heaven. But this is a sacrifice that like Paul talks about [Rm 12.1]: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Our lives as Christians is a living sacrifice—we are physically alive and we are spiritually alive—alive in Christ. And led by Christ in us, empowered by His Holy Spirit in us, we sacrifice—we put to death our old sinful nature.
In other words, for a proper Thanksgiving Day tomorrow not just the Thanksgiving turkey is slaughtered, but also by our thanksgivings we are putting to death our old sinful nature. What does our old sinful nature/ self want us to do? It wants us to become proud at all that we have done and accomplished; it wants us to look at everything we have as that which we earn and deserve; it wants us to rely on ourselves and our strength, ability, talent, goodness, etc. It wants us to take the attitude of the man in our Lord’s parable [Lk. 12.19]: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink and be merry. And, if we do so; if our old sinful self gets its way with us; if it is not slaughtered like the Thanksgiving turkey; what will happen? Our gaze will turn from the Lord and His grace to ourselves; it will turn its gaze to the things and stuff that surround us; and as our gaze turns away more and more away from the Lord and His grace, faith is gradually extinguished, the Holy Spirit expelled from our heart; any true contentment and joy we have will be gone.
But as we celebrate a Thanksgiving Day tomorrow like Jacob did 4200 years ago, we crucify, put to death our old sinful nature—we slaughter that Thanksgiving Day turkey. A proper, God-pleasing, Thanksgiving like Jacob celebrated that day recognizes our sin, our unworthiness and takes the focus away from us and our strength, our worthiness, our deserving all that we have and turns our attention to our Lord, His grace, His loving kindness and devotion toward us, His mercy and truth. Then, and only then, is there gratitude and thanksgiving—for the beggar has received that which he did not in any way deserve.
Only when that old sinful nature is put to death by the sacrifice of thanksgiving can we be truly happy, content, and thankful. Only when it is slaughtered like the turkey, can we truly say with Jacob from the heart: I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant. Only when we can say that with Jacob will we be truly content with what the Lord gives us. If we are discontent, if we think the Lord has done us wrong by not giving us exactly what we want and think we deserve, if we compare our blessings/ situations to others and find ourselves, we think, lacking—that is the old sinful nature coming to the fore. Not only does it make us proud and boastful—look at all I earned with my work and brain—but it can also lead us to despair, despising what God has given us. Again, the sacrifice of thanksgiving—recognizing our sin and unworthiness and God’s loving kindness and mercy to us, truly saying from the heart: I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant and gratefully receiving whatever the Lord in His wisdom knows is best to give us, puts to death that old sinful nature. In other words, thanksgiving is a vital part of our Christian lives; it is part of the life long struggle between the old sinful self and the Christian, the new self in us.
May our Thanksgiving Day tomorrow be like the simple, humble Thanksgiving Day Jacob in our text observed. It lacked all outward trappings we associate with thanksgiving—he was even fearing for his life—but it had what makes for a truly blessed Thanksgiving Day: a recognition of sin and unworthiness but also of God’s loving kindness and faithfulness. Like Jacob, may we especially tomorrow offer up that sacrifice of thanksgiving and by true faith-filled gratitude put to death that old sinful nature in us. INJ Amen