with Gratitude

Gratitude, Even In Sorrow

11.23.25 [Lamentations 3:21-26] River of Life (Thanksgiving)

Mercy and peace are yours in abundance, even in the messiest moments of life. Amen. 

Gratitude is easy in good times. Part of us even expects to hear it. When we hold the door open for someone who's headed our way, we expect a smile, a nod, and an expression of gratitude. When we’re watching the game this week, and a player is being interviewed because of his outstanding performance, we expect him to thank fans, teammates, coaches, and maybe even God. We expect children to say thank you after they open a present on Christmas Day. 

Gratitude is easy in good times. When it doesn’t immediately bubble to the surface, all that is needed is a polite prompt. A little reminder. Gratitude never comes through gritted teeth in good times. 

But today in our reading from 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul tells us that it is God’s will for us to 1 Th. 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances. Not just the good moments, but in all circumstances. Not just when we receive some miraculous blessing, like the ten lepers in our Gospel reading. Not just when we’re sitting down for a big meal with a bunch of people we love. But give thanks in all circumstances. 

When we hear this instruction from the Lord, our knee-jerk reaction is something along the lines of “the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” There is a part of us, the part that the Bible calls the 2 Cor. 5:17 new creation, that wants to be the kind of person who is willing and able to give thanks in all circumstances. We want to be more thankful people because thankful people are happier people. They have more friends. They handle stress and setbacks better. People who give thanks in all circumstances are what we aspire to be. 

We admire them until we meet one in the wild. Then, they’re just a little too sweet for our liking. They’re talking about silver linings and half-full glasses, and there’s a part of us that thinks they’re just hallucinating.  

We wonder if they’re just lucky, if they’ve just caught more breaks than the rest of folks, or if they’re just oblivious to how life in the real world really works. We wonder if giving thanks in all circumstances is just a personality trait or preference—like how some people just love mornings. 

Experience in life will tell you that being grateful comes easier to some folks than others—like patience, joy, kindness, humility, & self-control. 

Some Christian virtues come more naturally to us than others. But this doesn’t exempt us from God’s call to give thanks in all circumstances. 

And Jeremiah helps put to rest all those excuses we fabricate in our minds. Jeremiah wasn’t a naturally upbeat guy. He didn’t catch a bunch of lucky breaks. Jeremiah’s nickname to this day is “the weeping prophet”. Yet, through many tears, the Lord has used this weeping prophet to teach us how to lament with gratitude. 

Perhaps you’re familiar with the book that bears his name. It’s fifty-two chapters of Jeremiah delivering bad news. He had to tell obstinate and rebellious people hard things about the future. Things were going to go from bad to worse. They were going to be conquered by the Babylonians and their best and brightest would be carried off into exile. No one likes to hear that kind of message. Jeremiah had to live it & live with its realities. 

His relatives plotted his assassination. His king called him a traitor. He was arrested and thrown into a muddy cistern to die a slow and painful death. He was rescued by a foreigner but remained under arrest. He saw unspeakable horrors in Jerusalem during a two-year Babylonian siege. He saw Judah’s king flee in the middle of the night like a coward and then saw Jerusalem burn to the ground and the Temple ransacked. Babylon offered him freedom and peace but he remained in Jerusalem’s amidst squalor, chaos, and power struggles. The people wanted to flee to Egypt, but Jeremiah warned them not to disobey the Lord and do that. They didn’t listen and dragged him there, too. There, according to writings outside the Bible, he was stoned to death. 

So no, Jeremiah didn’t have it easy. He experienced affliction and hardship. He knew bitterness & isolation. He was a laughingstock among his people. He had forgotten what peace & prosperity were.

Yet, none of it was really his fault. He didn’t choose to live among a wicked and rebellious people. He tried to warn them. He did his very best to follow the Lord’s commands. He suffered anyway. 

Can you relate? Your life likely isn’t as bad as Jeremiah’s was. But there are bad things that have happened to you as a byproduct of living in a sinful world. You and your loved ones have suffered from diseases or chronic pain. You’ve buried some of the best people you know. Maybe you’ve been the victim of violence. You’ve suffered due to the selfishness, stubbornness, or negligence of other people. Perhaps you’ve been slandered or robbed or the object of derision. 

How can we give thanks in these circumstances and worse ones? 

Jeremiah gives us a template in the book of Lamentations. A lament is different from a complaint or grumbling. A lament is an honest cry to God for help. It is a real recognition that there are things wrong in this world and in your life that are not the consequences of your own sin. A lament acknowledges that you can’t fix it either. That the problem is bigger than you or anyone else you know. A lament cries out: Lord help me! Lord help me because I am overwhelmed. Lord help me because I can’t help myself. Lord help me because you’re the only one who can. Lord help me because no one loves me more! Lord help me because I know you’re good; you’re good to your people and your word. 

Do you hear that attitude in Jeremiah’s words? Despite everything that had happened to him and around him, he gave thanks for God’s great love and faithfulness. Lam. 3:21-23 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. 

Even in tough times, even as he’s writing a book of Lamentations, Jeremiah is giving thanks. He is speaking honestly about his present situation. But he still speaks with hopefulness, because of the Lord. That’s what gratitude sounds like in great trouble. Laments cling to the Lord’s goodness and love. Jeremiah speaks honestly, hopefully, and helpfully. 

He doesn’t do what comes naturally. He doesn’t wallow in self-pity. He doesn’t suffer in silence. He doesn’t spew rage. He doesn’t grow bitter or resentful. He draws near to God and clings to who the Lord is and what the Lord has done and what the Lord promises he will do. He cries Lord help me! He doesn’t do what comes naturally. He does what comes from God alone. 

Our Lord Jesus did the same in tough times. Jesus faced the most stress and temptation of his earthly life during Holy Week. And we hear him lament: Mt 23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen her chicks, but you were not willing. Those prophets were men like Jeremiah. God himself had sent them to Jerusalem to call them to repentance. 

To lead them to cry out Lord help me! But they were not willing. Yet the Son of God took no pleasure in their suffering. He longed for her to gather under his wings. He worked for their redemption.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus laments his substitutionary suffering and death. He prayed three times: Mk. 14:36 Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. On the cross, he cried out, Mt. 27:46 Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? (which means My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) Jesus knows why we lament. 

And yet, when he died, Lk. 23:46 he called out in a loud voice: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Even in the worst of his moments, Jesus spoke honestly, hopefully, and helpfully. He cried out God help me and trusted that God would indeed do what was right at the right time and in the right way. 

Lam. 3:25 The Lord indeed, is good to those whose hope is in him. To the one who seeks him, even in their sorrow and suffering. He made our troubles his own. He took our sin upon his own shoulders. He died that we might be redeemed. He rose that we might have hope even as we are surrounded by darkness and death. Is there anything we could be more grateful for? Someone who sticks by our side when we are suffering, not just when we’re enjoying success. Someone who wipes away our tears. Someone whose love never fails, whose mercy is fresh day after day, who gives us himself. 

This is what we have to be grateful for in the worst of times. It isn’t easy, but it is so important and so beneficial for us to know through experience that our help comes from the Lord. 

Maybe right now, you’re feeling laid low like Jeremiah. Let this yet bring you comfort. His compassions never fail. His mercies are new every morning. HIs faithfulness is great. But maybe, you have plenty of things to be thankful for at this time. Seek out those who are suffering. Don’t let them wallow in silence or isolation. Don’t give them false hope about how what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or how everything happens for a reason. Those things are true, only when they are fruits of a tree rooted in the Lord’s promises. When we are weak, God is strong. When we go through hard, bad, sad times, he works out all things for our good. But he doesn’t always make us feel stronger or give us the explanations we long for. Sometimes, all we can do is lament & trust God’s goodness. 

But every time we cry out Lord help me! we have this confidence. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Because he is good to those who hope in him, to the one who seeks him and says: Lord help me! & knows My help comes from the Lord. Amen.