Thanksgiving 2007
Thanksgiving Day
Colossians 1:9–14
November 22, 2007
“The Root and Fruit of Thanksgiving”
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Introduction: There is an old legend that goes something like this: God sent out two of His holy angels each equipped with a large sack. The one was to gather into his sack the prayers in which people were asking for something; the second angel was to gather the prayers in which the people were thanking the Lord Almighty. The first of these two angels soon had his sack filled with requests, and quickly returned to the Lord. The second angel, however, blushed with shame and disappointment when he returned with only a few little prayers of thanks in his large sack. The point is very clear. When we are in need, we eagerly approach the Lord as He has told us to ask Him for the things that we need. But when the Lord gives us what we ask for and even more – we are inclined to express a quick word of thanks and move on with our lives, then forget what He has done.
Thanksgiving Day has embraces many ideals of what we like and love about life, the inspirational background of pilgrim history, the hymns we love to sing, the lavish spread of food shared with family or good friends, the opportunity to give thanks to God for his many blessings. All of these things are good.
But there is a danger that we may praise God with our words and appetites today but then snub him with our thoughts and actions tomorrow and the day after that and the rest of the year. There is the danger that we will forget all that our God has done.
It is like the story of Johnson and Jackson, two men who knew each other and met at the airport. They talked with each other. The conversation went like this: “Say, Johnson, don’t you recognize me?” “Of course,” was the cold reply. “Well, aren’t you even going to say ‘hello’?” “Hello,” was the unenthusiastic response. “Aren’t you being a bit ungrateful, Johnson?” Jackson replied. “When you were ill two years ago, who paid your doctor bills?” “You did.” “And this summer, who saved you from drowning when you got a cramp?” “You did,” said Johnson once more. “And you can pass me by without even a greeting?” “Well, sure,” said Johnson. “What have you done for me in the past three months?” “ What have you done for me lately?
I doubt if anyone here today is so blatantly ungrateful. On a day such as today, our thanks may be quite profuse, but there is the distinct possibility that we may easily lapse back into a forgetful life. We may even be unaware of how ungrateful we have become toward God. Certainly there is an echo of this in our Gospel lesson for today. Remember the gospel reading about ten healed lepers and the one that returns to give thanks. I can’t help but wonder, after this day of profuse thanks and praise, how many will return to give thanks this coming Sunday and the Sundays that follow. It’s just a thought. Never the less. I do not want to focus on that; rather, I want to focus on Our God and Our Lord and Savior, and the reasons Christians give thanks, over and over again.
Our God speaks to us this day about perpetual thanksgiving, the thanksgiving life or, to put it another way, “the root and fruit of Thanksgiving.”
The seeds we sow in spring will not produce healthy plants if the root is shallow or diseased. Similarly, our thanksgiving will be weak and short lived if the root is shallow or missing. According to St. Paul in our text, the real root of gratitude toward God is a matter of being “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (v 9). That is Paul’s prayer for us.
What does that mean? Well, spiritual knowledge and understanding and wisdom are all linked together. As we grow in our knowledge of God by reading and hearing his Word and by observing his hand in history, in nature, and in our personal lives, we understand Him better. As we understand Him better, we become wiser in our attitudes toward life and toward Him. As we become wiser, we become more thankful to Him. As we become more aware we become more appreciative of his love for the world and for us individually. This is the thanksgiving root that nourishes the thanksgiving plant, which in turn produces the fruit of thanksgiving!
Spiritual wisdom sees God’s providence in history. A ship left England in 1620 and landed at Plymouth. This vessel held Puritans who were fleeing from religious oppression, searching for a land where they could worship in freedom. They were not soldiers, but families. They did not carry swords, but Bibles. Their motive was not to gain land and wealth, but to establish a home where they could serve God. In many ways these people set the tone for much of the history that our country has had. Although, now, in our day, the freedom to worship and thank God has been perverted into a freedom from God. This is totally unlike the Pilgrims that understood their dependence on God and thanked Him for His providential care.
Spiritual knowledge knows how dependent we are. In world history, our country is one of the few that offers wealth, comfort and security. It offers freedom, although I believe that this is changing. None the less many people conclude that we are a pretty self-sufficient people. But when you get right down to it, we are not. One of the blessings that God imparts is the knowledge that though we may posses everything we want, we have nothing without Him. A person that considers this life to be all that there is to be pitied. For God has created us for so much more.
This is when we consider that we are dependent on God not only for physical needs but also for spiritual needs. By nature we are selfish, sinful human beings with no way to escape death. We have no peace of conscience or assurance of a happy eternity. It is only because God provides forgiveness through the death of his own Son, Jesus Christ, as our substitute, that we have spiritual peace and security. His Spirit calls us to believe that, and it keeps us in that faith. We are constantly and utterly dependent on his grace and mercy. This knowledge and understanding is the deepest root of thanksgiving. The deepest root of thanksgiving is in these words of Paul: “[Give] thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:12–14).
We share in the inheritance of the saints in light. True, while we feebly struggle here on earth, and the Christians that have died bask in the glory of the Father. Yet we are one in Christ. We, too, “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9). “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13).
How has this happened for us? It is through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Because of Him “We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (v 14). We are right with God. We are at peace with him. We are empowered to live with thanksgiving, leading a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work. The apostle Paul says, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (vv 10–11). Our God enables us to live the thankful life of a person that has been forgiven and has eternal life, a God-pleasing life, a fruitful life, a life of service and joy.
In spite of this knowledge, we know, because of the weakness of are sinful flesh, how inclined we are to forget all the wonderful things that our Lord God has done for us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Tell Me about God. There's that wonderful story about the little boy who couldn't wait for his new baby sister to come home from the hospital. Couldn't wait to be near her, to talk to her. But his parents didn't want him to be left alone with her; he was only four, they wanted to supervise his visits. He kept begging to be alone with her so one night his parents finally relented. The boy tiptoed into her room and next to his sister's crib and said: "Tell me about God - I'm starting to forget." (Linda B. Hirst, Do We Need Communion?)
That’s why we are here today. That is why we will gather together around the Lord’s table and celebrate our Lord’s Supper. Our Lord helps us with our remembering. On the night when our Lord was betrayed He took bread, His body, He took the cup, His blood and gave it to His disciples. And as He did He said, “Do this in remembrance and may I say also the thanksgiving of me. In this bread and in this wine we remember. We remember just how much God loves us. We remember how God reached out to us, came to us in Jesus Christ. We remember that Jesus died so that we might know forgiveness of all our sins and be reconciled with God. We remember that Christ is present with us now.
Over and over, God’s Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to repentance and leads us to give thanks, to remember – Not just today, but everyday. The Lord reminds us that we are forgiven and redeemed by the death of His Son on the cross. He invites us to return to Him again and again, to return to worship and recount the wonderful blessings of the Lord that He freely gives to each and every one of us. And so on this day, we give our God our thanks and praise. Amen. (Rev. Paul G. Lessmann†”
