In Thankfulness and Praise

Grace, mercy and peace be to you as we celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday. One of the main reasons we come to this house of God on a regular basis is to give thanks, and on this day we make thanksgiving to our God our first priority. But that begs the question, shouldn’t we make thanksgiving to our God our top priority every day?

The Bible reminds us, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). But that is easier said than done when the kids are sick, the car breaks down, and the furnace needs replacing. We can quickly switch from thanking to complaining. Life can be hard, there is no denying that. And giving thanks in hard times is not a denial or disregard of the troubles of life. No one knows that better than St. Paul who en-dured great hardship and did not discount how tough those hardships were, but still was able to give thanks. Consider these verses when Paul says:

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (2 Corinthians 11:24-29).

All rough stuff, right? But then Paul is able to say by the grace of God:

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying” (2 Corinthians 11:30-31).

As we might say today, Paul “owns” his weaknesses and his bad situations. He does not see them as punishment or a detriment to his faith. He continues to call God blessed forever. We could say he continued to live in thankfulness and praise to God. All the bad stuff in life does not compare in the least to the goodness of God.

I am also reminded of this story of Scripture when Paul and Silas were in prison:

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God (Acts 16:25-34).

This story shows us what being filled with thankfulness and praise, even in hard times, can do. For Paul and Silas, it led them to sing songs of praise for their fellow prisoners to hear. Then when their bonds were released, their thankfulness to God led them to reach out to the fearful jailer who was on the verge of killing himself but who ultimately wanted to be saved. Paul and Silas preached the Good News of Jesus to the jailer and his family and baptized them all. The jailer was so thankful that he had Paul and Silas over for dinner at his house with all his family gathered round. Sound familiar? That was a thanksgiving dinner, if there ever was one.

Thankfulness and praise to God can be revealed in many different ways. These glimpses from St. Paul’s life indicate that good can come from bad and even that good can sometimes come with the bad. Life is not all sunshine and roses, but sunshine and roses can come in the midst of less than beautiful things, and for that we should be thankful. There is also that saying that goes, “You can’t have a rainbow without the rain.” Stormy periods sometimes come before a glorious result. I also think of the saying, “Good things come to those who wait.” So often we have to be patient beyond what we even think we are capable of before a good thing comes our way according to God’s will. Such waiting can make the gift from God even richer than we ever imagined.

Much of what we are talking about here can be seen in the life of Jesus. The people of God waited thousands of years for a Savior. Then when Jesus came “at just the right time,” the an-gels in heaven rejoiced along with the shepherds on the hillside, the wise men from afar and Simeon and Anna in the temple. They all waited long through troubled times and gave thanks with their whole hearts when Jesus arrived. Our thankfulness and praise to God should be the same for the gift of Jesus and for all the blessings that Jesus brings.

Jesus himself endured great suffering on the cross before he died on Good Friday, but when he rose from the dead on Easter morning, the rejoicing began with the angels at the tomb, Mary and the other women who saw Jesus alive again, the disciples who were in a closed room when Jesus appeared, and the Emmaus disciples who walked with Jesus and broke bread with him. Our thankfulness and praise should mirror theirs as we rejoice in the fact that Jesus is present with us now as he said he would be, that he forgives our sins through his death and resurrection and that he is preparing a place for us in heaven that we might live with him forever.

The story of Jesus is called Good News for a reason. It is truly a good thing, the best thing that could ever happen. Being forgiven and loved and saved by Jesus is something to treasure eternally and never take for granted. Our place in God’s family through Jesus is a reality that should never be forgotten as we sit around our Thanksgiving tables with family and friends. In fact, our holiday feasts here on earth are a vibrant foretaste of the feast to come at the banquet of heaven, as foretold in Isaiah 25:6:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

What a day that will be when we will gather round the table of the Lord with all the saints in light to feast and rejoice in the promise of heaven fulfilled.

But until that time we wait and we rejoice even as we dwell in this world of sin. We wait and we rejoice because we know what is coming. Jesus will return to take us home with him. And we know what has already happened: Jesus has defeated sin and death forever, and there is nothing that can change that. We are living in between the two comings of Christ, and, there-fore, we have nothing to fear because the story has already been written and we know the ending: our happily ever after with Jesus.

But in the meantime, we have our little stories to live, our ups and downs, our good times and bad, our successes and failures, our interactions with families, friends, neighbors, classmates and coworkers, our jobs and careers, our hopes and dreams, our changes and transitions. We bring them all to the table, to the Thanksgiving table. We lay our life stories before our God and before one another and in that moment at that table, we give thanks to God for it all. It is who we are. It is who God made us to be. Thankful beyond measure and thankful for the journey God has given us to be able to come to him in this place and at this time to be with these people. It is a wonder and a joy, a marvel and treasure, something we hold dear, this life we have because of him and because of Christ. We are part of God’s plan and a part of God’s story, eternally entwined with the endless love and grace poured out upon us from above. So we lift up our hearts this day and say, “Thank you, God! Thank you for it all!” Amen.