Thanksgiving Eve
Dear friends in Christ. Tomorrow is our nation’s day of Thanksgiving, the day set aside to cause us to reflect on all our blessings as a nation and individually and, as originally intended, to give thanks to the holy Triune God. We commonly trace our Thanksgiving holiday back to 1621 and the celebrations held by the pilgrims after a successful growing season. Their celebration lasted three days and was probably held in late September or early October—and more as a harvest celebration. It included 50 pilgrims—out of the original 100 who landed and 90 Indians who had been invited as guests.
Days of Thanksgiving had been proclaimed sporadically throughout the following years on various occasions. George Washington proclaimed one in December 1777 as a victory celebration for the British defeat at Saratoga. The Continental Confederation Congress, the legislative body that governed the United States from 1774-1789, issued several “national days of prayer, humiliation and thanksgiving.” The proclamation of 1782, signed by its president, John Hanson, a Lutheran, begins: It being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up their supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for His gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner, to give Him praise for His goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of His Providence in their behalf…It then goes on to list several significant blessings the United States had received. It then concludes requesting the states to appoint a day of Thanksgiving, 28 November 1782, to God for all His mercies; and that all ranks testify their gratitude to God for His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness. George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day of the national government of US for 26 November 1789. On and off other presidents declared national days of Thanksgiving until Abraham Lincoln in 1863—and every year after that the fourth Thursday in November was proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving.
Will many in our nation even pause tomorrow to give God thanks for His blessings—or will it be a stressful day of traveling, gathering, eating, watching parades or football, shopping, etc. with hardly a thought given to giving thanks? What will you thank the holy Triune God for, tomorrow in particular? What seems so odd is that we as Christians even need to be prompted by the government to give thanks. Shouldn’t our lives be one of a constant thanksgiving? Shouldn’t tomorrow be just like any other day—a day of praise and thanksgiving? Indeed it should! But that would only be the case if we also did not still have with us our old sinful nature that doesn’t want to thank God, that wants us to think that everything I have or am is the result of my hard work and/ brains, that everything I have I earned or deserved; it rightly belongs to me. We need to take seriously that old sinful nature within us that wants us to forget about God, to push Him away in some far off corner. That’s why this national Day of Thanksgiving—proclaimed, not by the Church, but by the government is such a blessed and vital thing—something in itself to give God thanks for! As we are reminded to give thanks and led by the Holy Spirit actually do give God thanks for all His blessings, we are fighting, putting down, crucifying that old sinful self within us.
As you sit down tomorrow to your Thanksgiving meal—as you sit down to enjoy any meal—how can it really be a meal of Thanksgiving? That’s what we’ll see as we examine our text this evening looking at the Christians in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church, in particular the words: they were receiving their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God. For these Christians every meal was a Thanksgiving meal—certainly not the type with turkey and stuffing—but a meal for which and in which they thanked the Lord for His blessings.
Notice how St. Luke says these Christians were receiving their food: with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God. How/ why could they receive their food with gladness? That answer is found in the words that come right before this: So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread in their homes... Did you notice that? These Christians were deeply connected to our Lord’s holy word-- in the temple—and sacrament—and breaking break. That was the foundation of their lives. Word and sacrament were not some additional extra thrown in as time or desire allowed, they served as the basis of who and what these Christians were.
They continued in the temple. In the temple is where the word of God which promised the coming Savior and His saving work was proclaimed; in the temple is where the sacrifices took place—sacrifices that pointed forward to Jesus’ perfect once for all sacrifice for the sins of the world. In the temple courtyards and spacious halls the Christians would gather and hear the apostles preach Jesus—the fulfillment of all the temple foreshadowed. These Christians were receiving their food with gladness because their joy was firmly grounded. In the apostles’ preaching Jesus and His life, suffering, death and resurrection and ascension the people were directed heavenward and to the certainty of their salvation in Jesus. Their hearts were filled with joy because —there in the temple—in the word they heard and saw prophesying and foreshadowing Christ, they heard in the apostles’ preaching that it has all been fulfilled in Jesus. Their hearts were filled with joy because God showed them grace in Christ. They had that joy—it was firmly and Spirit-worked. They had the joy that they now, in Jesus, knew God rightly as the gracious holy Triune God; they had the joy that they had now passed from death to life; they had the joy of now having in Christ the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Their joy was not fleeting but firmly grounded. In the temple, then, they honored God with prayer, thanks and the confession of faith.
That praise and thanks was not just relegated to one corner of their life—when they were in the temple. Instead, it permeated their daily lives. In the firm and certain faith that things are right between them and God, that their sins have been paid for, that Jesus reconciled us sinners with the holy God, that heaven is now open to us, is it any wonder that they were receiving their food with gladness? What was the food that they were receiving—wasn’t it a reminder/ a token to them of God’s greater blessings to them in Christ, the heavenly and spiritual blessings? And that’s how they received it and with joy!
Can we say anything different about ourselves? Certainly not! We have received and enjoy the same heavenly and spiritual gifts and blessings of forgiveness of sin and eternal life as they have. We have the same Christ, the same gracious God. We, too, tomorrow can sit down before our feast and receive it with gladness. To be sure, in the past year we may have suffered various set-backs, endured various trials and sufferings, things we wouldn’t really necessarily be thankful for. But that doesn’t matter! Why not? Because the great graces and gifts of Christ that He won for us remain! Our hearts are still glad and can still receive our food—especially tomorrow’s feast—with gladness because Jesus and His work remain.
That’s why the temple—So continuing daily with one accord in the temple...! In the temple they heard and were reminded of our Lord and His grace; His gifts and blessings in Christ. Because that was always before them, in the ears and hearts, they could receiv[e] their food with gladness no matter what the outward circumstance. That’s why, dear Christian, if you feel lackluster in your thanksgiving, if you think you really have more to be unthankful for than thankful than you must repent. You are listening more/ following the leading of your old sinful self, that ally of the devil. Repent and be like these Christians in the Church in Jerusalem—be faithfully and regularly in church; daily read solid devotional books; be in Bible study here in church; daily remember your baptism by recognizing and sorrowing over your sins and by faith reclaiming the gifts and blessing God gave you in it. As you continue daily with one accord with your fellow Christians here in church, the Lord will constantly be teaching you and reminding you Whose you are and what you are in Him. Not only will He teach and remind you of the gifts and blessing He has lavishly poured out on you, but in His holy word and Sacrament He actually gives them to you.
And then there’s that other thing that these Christians were doing: breaking bread in their homes. Although some interpret these words as merely referring to having meals together—like a pot luck of some sort—it is better to understand these words, like Luther does [AE, xxxv, 61], as referring to the Blessed Sacrament. Elsewhere this phrase is clearly a reference to the sacrament. There’s the glorious sacramental connection to our lives of Thanksgiving. As Jesus comes to us in the sacrament and in our very mouths giving us His very body and blood, giving us the forgiveness of sins, uniting us with Him, and as we in faith receive these gifts and blessings, what joy fills us! How that joy must overflow into our whole life. With God’s holy word and sacrament serving as the foundation of your life, there can be no doubt for you—just as there was no doubt for these Jerusalem Christians. That’s why they were receiving their food with gladness; and that’s why tomorrow you can receive and eat your Thanksgiving feast with gladness and joy of heart.
Also notice as well from our text: they were receiving their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. That glorious phrase simplicity of heart. That’s the fruit of faith. Where there’s faith, it [Ps 34.8] has tasted and seen that the Lord is good and trusts in the Lord to graciously provide and care. Not only is there is lack of Thanksgiving when we lose sight of God’s graces and gifts to us in Christ, but also when our old sinful self comes to the fore and thinks that it, not God, knows best and is disgruntled when we do not get all we think we earn or deserve; when we are not happy with what God provides and thinking that we deserve more or better. When we feel ourselves thinking we deserve better and do not like the way we think God is treating us, let us repent. Listening to our old sinful nature, that old malcontent, we will never be happy; we can never receive our food—even tomorrow’s feast—with simplicity of heart.
With simplicity of heart we recognize that everything we are or have is God’s gracious gift to us. The simplicity of heart recognizes that all that we earn for ourselves on account of our sin is God’s wrath and damnation, but in grace and mercy He has in Christ given us the forgiveness of sin and has made us His dear children and heirs of heaven and that He now always deals with us in grace and as His dear children. That’s why Solomon writes [Eccl. 9.7]: Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. We enjoy with thanksgiving what God gives and in childlike faith commit the rest to Him. What a glorious peace we enjoy! How much room then our hearts have for thanksgiving! Certain of the forgiveness of sins, we, in simple faith, joyfully receive with thanksgiving all that the Lord gives.
Tomorrow we can enjoy our Thanksgiving meal, and we can enjoy God’s gifts to us every day, as we, having as our foundation God’s holy word and sacraments, receive His gifts with gladness of heart—since He is our gracious and merciful God and Savior—and with simplicity of heart—the quiet heart of faith. In other words, we can enjoy our Thanksgiving Day feast and all gifts of God as we recognize we are sinners saved by grace and that God still graciously provides for us. INJ