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Dear Soren Frederick, who tonight has received new birth by the washing of water and the word, and all the baptized here in Christ Jesus, grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
You know, I think in some ways the importance of Thanksgiving—when I say Thanksgiving, I mean the Thanksgiving with a capital T, this national holiday—sometimes seems to be fading away or passing away. As your neighbors begin to start dragging in those elaborate Halloween displays and start dragging them into the garage, putting them in boxes, and putting them in storage, they have to drag all the Christmas stuff right back out again. And of course, you go into the stores; they’re already forcing Christmas on you at least the first week in November, if not before.
Now maybe we’ll say, well, Thanksgiving’s not that popular because there aren’t any good yard decorations. But I’m afraid it’s something else. I’m wondering, are we not forgetting to be thankful, even if it’s just on this one day that we have set aside for it? Has Thanksgiving kind of lost its luster? It’s, what I would say is its prior standing as one of our most treasured and beloved national holidays. In fact, it’s one that none other than George Washington really was the one who helped initiate and kind of inculcate into American society. Because in doing so, he actually invoked the name of Almighty God to be acknowledged, obeyed, and to be given thanks for his protection and his favor upon this new nation and its form of government.
To suggest that his intention was that this would become a secular holiday is, I think, wrong. But I know you didn’t come here tonight for a civics lesson. I think it is important, but that’s not what I want us to really think about. Instead, I want us to really think about what it means to be thankful. If you’re like me, you probably grew up going to these big family Thanksgiving celebrations. Maybe you still do. My family’s a lot smaller now. I think back to that time, and I remember how it wasn’t optional; you just did not go any less than you didn’t not go to church on Sunday.
Maybe we kind of had this discussion a little bit last year on this evening about how Thanksgiving itself isn’t even really a church commemoration or festival, especially maybe not within the Lutheran church. It’s a mere, as they call it, occasion. You have to flip all the way to the back of the lectionary to find it. Indeed, some congregations choose to not even observe it. I suppose that all of this might matter if it was the one and only day that we had to be thankful. But as we will be reminded shortly in the proper preface, it is truly right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you, Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God.
But what about when we don’t feel like giving thanks? Maybe today, tomorrow, this entire week, we have found ourselves in less than a thankful mood. Perhaps you’re looking around, and there is an empty seat at the table. Somebody has passed away since last year. Maybe there’s a family member who has a disagreement and has decided to pull themselves away from the family. Maybe you just simply don’t have anyone to gather with. Maybe your health isn’t what it used to be. Maybe you’re unemployed. Maybe you’re frustrated with your job. Maybe your life is just a big old mess right now.
Thinking back to this idyllic Thanksgiving of your youth, with all your family there to feast and to celebrate, this postcard image of what we think Thanksgiving ought to look like might be fading into memory. Right? Unfortunately, in dwelling on these things, we may all forget all that the Lord has truly blessed us with.
Now the people of Israel, we here tonight, were admonished to not forget all that the Lord had indeed blessed them with and provided them with and would soon give them. Not just that He gave them their daily bread in the wilderness, just enough so that they may be satisfied and so that they may trust that He would give it to them without fail. Not just the clothes on their back or the sandals that miraculously seemed to never wear thin, but that he would deliver them into the good land, the promised land. The good land with brooks of water, with fountains and springs, a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive trees, and honey, and that they would lack nothing, and that they would eat and be full. Amen.
But as we know, their pride and the status of being the children of Israel led them to lives of forgetfulness and thanklessness. So what did they do? They turned to other gods. They gave them their praise and their thanks and their worship. They paid a terrible price for their disobedience and their unbelief. Sometimes, maybe we find ourselves with kind of a like attitude that we become proud of our own accomplishments, our own prosperity, viewing it not really as any kind of gift from God, but as a result of our own hard work or just pure luck.
At times God, as he did with the Israelites, tests us for our own sake so that we may come to trust him even more, to discipline us, to humble us. This is a reminder to bless the Lord, our God, for all he has given us. And how is it exactly that we bless him? Well, it’s simple. Through our prayer, through thanksgiving as our reason for prayer.
I think we can find no better, at least human model of this than Paul. In almost every one of his epistles, he begins by expressing his thanks. He says things like, “I thank my God,” or “I give thanks to my God,” or “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” or “We always thank God.” Just to think that out of all these epistles, at least four of them he wrote from prison. Talk about giving thanks while suffering; we see it there.
Tonight, we hear Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, not just to pray and thank God for those whom he thinks merit it or deserve it or are worth it, but for all people. It is not especially for our own benefit that we too ought to pray this way, although we may certainly reap some kind of benefit by it. No, we do so because of what Paul says here. It is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This is what the theologians call the antecedent will of God, that He desires that none would perish in their sin and in unbelief, but that all would be saved. Perhaps you’ve never thought of praying as being particularly patriotic, but just think about how we do almost every week pray for our rulers and for our government, for the kings and all who are in high positions that Paul speaks of. For in praying for them, we are praying for the welfare of all people in this nation. Not just that we Christians, but that we all may lead a peaceful and quiet life.
See, thanksgiving and prayer are inextricably linked and tied to one another. But we have to ask ourselves: do we pray as a matter of habit or simply as a last-ditch effort? Luther wrote that thankfulness is the virtue characteristic of real Christians. It is their worship of God at its best. They thank God and do it with all their heart. This is a virtue unattainable by any other human being on earth. And to think with all your heart is an art—an art which the Holy Spirit teaches. So we begin every prayer with thanksgiving.
You know, it doesn’t really even have to be anything in particular. It can simply be for all that God has given to us: the good and the bad. It doesn’t even have to be perfect. If you’ve ever heard me pray, you know that. Our prayer is not perfect or complete here on earth because it never will be. It will only be so in heaven. You know what? Even there, we will still be praying to God and thanking Him.
St. John tells us in Revelation chapter 4, whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, it shows that they are thanking God for doing what He had long promised to them. Also, in chapter 7, they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” So even in heaven, our thanksgiving will go on.
Thanksgiving is evidence of faith. For this Samaritan leper we hear about tonight, it was thanksgiving not just for this physical healing he received, but for the spiritual healing of salvation from his sickness of sin. He was healed because he believed. His Kyrie was this verbalization of faith. He, the least likely of the ten, was the only one who truly had faith in Christ because he was the only one who returned to give his thanks and worship to him. This confirms his faith. Some may wonder, well, did he ever make it back to the temple? Well, we don’t know, and it honestly doesn’t matter. Because Jesus showed there that true worship and thanksgiving should be given anywhere and everywhere, not just at the temple.
You may recall two Sundays ago we heard about the widow’s offering. This widow who dropped her last two coins in the box and this Samaritan leper, who was the only one who returned to praise his Messiah, they are one and the same. Because what they gave, they gave in faith. And God does expect thanksgiving from us. We teach and confess thanksgiving as an obligation of our faith. In the explanation of the first article, we affirm, “He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.” For all this, it is my duty to thank and praise, serve, and obey Him.
In the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for daily bread, that although God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, we pray that we receive the daily bread with thanksgiving. So tonight, we hear through the prophet Moses that God spoke to the people of Israel reminding them of all that He had done for them even during these 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
Through humbling and disciplining them and testing them, God, Paul, never ceased to think of those churches to which he preached and what he taught, and he was grateful for their encouragement to him and for their financial and material gifts, which were proof of their faith. He always reminded them of how they too would enjoy and be blessed with the riches and the glory of Christ Jesus. He also thanked God always for those brothers who served with him in the gospel. Last, of course, Jesus expected that those ten lepers would return and give thanks for his healing, but the only one who was least likely to bothered to go back and thank him. For this, he received the blessing of forgiveness and spiritual healing.
So we have the same in faith. We give thanks always. When you get that promotion at work, thanks be to God. When you get passed over, thanks be to God. When your dinner table is full, thanks be to God. When it’s lacking, thanks be to God. When that test result comes back negative, thanks be to God. And when it comes back with bad news, thanks be to God.
Thanksgiving, after all, is about being content with what the Lord has given, whether it’s for our benefit or to humble us. We give thanks when we receive something, and we give thanks when we get nothing. Thanksgiving—whether we are talking about the act or the holiday—is meaningless apart from faith in Christ because unbelief does not pray and unbelief does not think.
It is only through faith in Christ that we, like our brother Soren tonight, have been given hope because you know that we have received new life and have been made a new creation. I know you are here tonight because you know this, because God has revealed his love to you in Christ and through his atonement on the cross for your sins. You are here to receive his gifts and you are here to return your thanks and your praise for those gifts.
So yes, Thanksgiving with a capital T, the holiday, is a good day and we should keep it and we should honor it as a reminder to give thanks. But Thanksgiving with a little t for us is to be far more than one day. It is to be our life. Therefore, brothers and sisters, before you lay your head down tonight, remember to pray. When you get up in the morning, remember to pray. As you go through your day, remember to pray. And as you do pray, remember to first give thanks.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, God of all grace, govern our hearts that we may never forget your blessings, but steadfastly thank and praise you for all your goodness in this life. Until with all your saints, we praise you eternally in your heavenly kingdom. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.
