Remember and Give Thanks
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Thank you” is one of the very first things we learned to say as children, and hopefully one of the first things we teach our children to say. It is the language of being given to, the response to gifts received. Most of us still have that parental reminder ringing in our ears from our youngest days: “‘Now what do you say?’ ‘Thank you.’” God in Scripture teaches us to say “thank you” to Him. The psalms are a veritable cornucopia of praise and thanksgiving: “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High.” “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him, bless His name!” “O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever.” “I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to You among the nations.”
Our contemporary version of Thanksgiving is much more an exercise in American civil religion with mythological stories of Pilgrims and Indians; a ritual meal of turkey, dressing, cranberries and all the fixings; and a common liturgy supplied by the National Football League or Hallmark, depending on who has the remote.
The Church hardly needs to be reminded by Caesar to give thanks to God for His gifts. In the Liturgy we recognize that it is “truly good, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks...” The life of the Christian is life lived in thanksgiving for the gifts received through Jesus Christ.
For the Christian, every day is a day of thanksgiving. When we give thanks to God, we are confessing that God is the Giver and that we are at the receiving end of all that He gives. God doesn’t need our thanks; still, we need to thank Him. Thanksgiving is for our benefit, not God’s. It is a reminder that God is our strength, and that it is by the power and might of His merciful hand, and not our hands, that we receive all that we have.
At the time that Moses preached the sermon in Deuteronomy, Israel was standing on the threshold of the promised land. The rich land of Canaan was God’s gift to His people, the fulfillment of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was a land too good to be true, especially after 40 hard years of wandering in the wilderness. It was a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which the people would eat bread without scarcity, in which they would lack nothing. “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.”
God knew the fickle hearts of His people. He knew they would not thank Him. He knew how self-centered the human heart is. So Moses said, “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.” “Remember.” That’s the key word in Deuteronomy. Remember the God who remembers you. Remember that God is the giver of the gifts. Remember to thank God for His gifts.
Thanksgiving, if it is to be thanksgiving to God, begins with our receiving Jesus, the Living Bread, and the gifts He died to give us, such as the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. Without these, there can be no thanksgiving to God. Thanksgiving flows out of faith in Jesus Christ; His perfect life of thanksgiving lived in our place; His atoning death on the cross; His victorious resurrection that means our rising from the dead on the Last Day; and our inheritance of eternal blessing.
And so we will give thanks to God—today, tomorrow, and every day. We will do it as citizens of our nation, as priests to God that we all are, anointed in Baptism to pray on behalf of our neighbor. We will give thanks for every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God; for the Word made Flesh, our Savior Jesus Christ; for the good land he has given us; and for the new heaven and new earth to come. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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