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On November 18, 2023 By In Culture

The Discipline of Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday. It is that too, of course, and many of us anticipate celebrating it on Thursday. But the deliberate ritual of giving thanks is not just a national holiday. It is a spiritual discipline.

Biblical thanksgiving is historical, not conceptual. Thanksgiving in the Bible is never just gratitude in general for non-specific ideas. God’s people were taught to give thanks for specific things: God’s wonder, works, and word. The psalms teach us to thank God for who he is, what he has done, and what he has promised to do in the future. They recount specific stories from history. It may seem strange to sing-pray about creation (Psa. 104), the plagues on Egypt (Psa. 105), Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness (Psa. 106), or God killing Egyptian children and Canaanite kings (Psa. 135), but the point is that God has blessed us and cared for us at specific times, in specific places, and consistently throughout the centuries. We are not just to thank God in general. We are to recognize and recall specific instances of his grace and goodness, and give him thanks and praise for them.

Biblical thanksgiving is verbal, not merely emotional. On one occasion Jesus met ten lepers and directed them to go and show themselves to the priests (Luke 17:11-19). As they went, they discovered Jesus had healed them. Nine of them went on their way, but one immediately returned to Jesus “and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving [Jesus] thanks.” Do you suppose the other nine men were glad they had been healed? No doubt, they were. But they were not thankful, because thanksgiving is an act, not a thought, not a feeling. They might have felt grateful to the Lord, but they did not give thanks to him. Certainly our thanksgiving should be heartfelt, but biblical thanksgiving is more than a feeling of gratefulness. It is the communication of it.

Biblical thanksgiving is intentional, not haphazard. There is a specific ritual of thanksgiving. Scripture teaches us to “use our words” when thanking God. The psalms provide many different liturgies for thanksgiving. Consider Psalm 136, an antiphonal song in which the leader or choir sings the mighty acts of God and the congregation responds again and again: “For His mercy endures forever!” Thanksgiving is not merely something we are to do when we think of it or feel like it. There is a discipline to thanksgiving, a structure, a schedule for it. Biblical thanksgiving is a ritual. There may be many different ways to engage in it—Scripture does not provide only one but many models for giving thanks to God—but amid the varieties we see an overarching unity. We praise God for creation, his judgment of sin, his work of redemption, his forbearance, our ongoing sanctification, and for his promises of future glory. There is a gospel-logic to the Church’s thanksgiving. Not every element may be present in every instance, but the narrative of redemption ought to order our expressions of gratitude to God.

Biblical thanksgiving is continual, not occasional. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1Thess. 5:16-17). God’s people are to be “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20). Every day, in every circumstance, at all times, we are to be giving thanks to God. We thank him for our pleasure and our pain, for our success and our sorrow, for our strength and our weakness. We know that he works “all things… together for good to those who love” him (Rom. 8:28). Not even evil can ultimately harm us, because God is using that evil to humble us and sanctify us. The things we imagine not even God could make us thankful for are reminders that we are not yet where we long to be, in the glorious presence of our resurrected Lord, so we can give thanks the Lord has not let us get too comfortable in our present state but ordered our lives so that we will fix our eyes on Jesus and “seek those things which are above” (Col. 3:1).

Every Lord’s Day is a day of thanksgiving. The Church has nothing of her own to offer God. The Divine Service is God’s service to us in renewing covenant and blessing his people through the means of grace. The service we offer is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise (Heb. 13:15). So bring your bulls of blessing and goats of gratitude, and place them on the altar of God. Light the fire of faith beneath them, and our prayers will ascend like the smoke of incense before God’s throne in heaven. Come, and “let us give thanks to Yahweh, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Psa. 138:1).

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On November 25, 2021 By In Culture, Film

The Walk: A Thanksgiving Movie Review

Philippe Petit walked across a wire strung between the Twin Towers in 1974. That is 1,312 feet in the air. He walked across it 8 times for a total of 45 minutes. 

In the movie about it, The Walk, at the climax, Philippe is walking across the wire for the second time and he says, “And then I feel something that maybe I have never truly felt before. I feel thankful. So I get down on one knee and I salute. First, I salute the wire, then the towers, and then I salute the great city of New York.” 

At the highest point in the movie, he offers thanks. The movie is about thanksgiving.

However, Philippe fails at this one point. He fails to offer thanks to what is still higher than him. He fails to acknowledge God. 

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On November 30, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Theology

Forget Not All His Benefits

Remembering is an essential part of thanksgiving. A forgetful person is someone who most likely struggles with ingratitude as well. And while you cannot give thanks for what you do not remember, there is a deeper meaning to the act of remembering than simply storing and recalling bits of information. 

As we come through another Thanksgiving holiday, learning how to remember and forget rightly will cultivate the rich heart-soil where gratitude and the grace that accompanies it can grow in all the various weather conditions of life.

Remembering that Leads to Gratitude

In Psalm 25, we find King David asking Yahweh to remember, and what he asks him to remember first is striking. He asks God to remember Himself.

Remember your mercy, O YAHWEH, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

Psalm 25:6

If we are to understand what it means for us to remember, we must first look at what it means for the Triune God Himself to remember. It is significant that David calls upon the name of Yahweh. This is God’s memorial name as revealed to Moses from the burning bush.

Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.

Exodus 3:13-15

Therefore, to call upon the name of Yahweh is to call upon the God who is. His name perfectly encompasses and reflects His character. And His character is perfectly expressed in His acts. David understood this. David believed this with his whole heart. He knew that God’s remembering is a commitment to act.  Yahweh sets before Himself the reality of who He is and responds in a way consistent with that reality. His name is a memorial name.

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On August 7, 2015 By In Scribblings

I Clement on Thanksgiving

“Let our whole body, then, be preserved in Christ Jesus; and let every one be subject to his neighbour, according to the special gift [charism] bestowed upon him. Let the strong not despise the weak, and let the weak show respect unto the strong. Let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God, because He hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied. Let the wise man display his wisdom, not by [mere] words, but through good deeds. Let the humble not bear testimony to himself, but leave witness to be borne to him by another. Let him that is pure in the flesh not grow proud of it, and boast, knowing that it was another who bestowed on him the gift of continence. Let us consider, then, brethren, of what matter we were made,—who and what manner of beings we came into the world, as it were out of a sepulchre [grave or burial place], and from utter darkness. He who made us and fashioned us, having prepared His bountiful gifts for us before we were born, introduced us into His world. Since, therefore, we receive all these things from Him, we ought for everything to give Him thanks; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

1 Clement, Ch. 38

 

N.B. I Clement is a letter of Clement of Rome, and likely one of the earliest of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.  It is one of the few writings that was considered for inclusion in the Canon of Scripture, but ultimately not received by the Church.  However, like many of the writings of the Fathers, it has always held a place of special honor.  It’s exclusion was not because of any error of doctrine but because the Church recognized that though it was written by a disciple of the Apostle Peter it was not written in his name as, for instance, Luke and Acts which were written by Luke (not an apostle) but in the name or under the supervision of Peter, were.  Thus the Church received it as an important and pious text, but not an inspired one.

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