OUR GREAT THANKSGIVING

“Happy harvest day! This has always been my favorite holiday in Ukraine.” This is how June Johnson, a missionary nurse in Ukraine that our church supports, began her latest update. She went on to say that Harvest day is a Sunday set aside each fall for giving thanks to God. For their church it is a 3-hour service with lunch for 200 served afterwards. Ukraine, as a nation, began a national yearly celebration of giving thanks to God in November of 2015. Over 100,000 people gathered in Kiev’s main square to thank God for the year’s harvest and for Ukraine.

                June went on to comment on what giving thanks meant to her. She said: “Many years ago, a sister in Christ, impressed upon me the importance of keeping a grateful heart. Important because it keeps things like worry, fear, and complaining on a short leash. Important because it gives other things like joy, trust and obedience lots of room to run. And, important because it keeps me remembering – remembering who God is, what he has done, what he will do in the end, and remembering all that he has given me.”

                Aaron pointed out in this week’s newsletter that “to give thanks” is from the Greek word “eucharisteo”. The Lord’s Supper has been called the Eucharist from the earliest days of the church because Jesus used that word at the Last Supper. Matthew 26:26 says, And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and give it to the disciples and said, “take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, “Drink from it all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

                The Lord’s Supper is our great thanksgiving. It is an act of thanksgiving, but more than that it cultivates thanksgiving – an attitude of gratitude. It reminds us that we have a choice. We can gripe and complain, or we can rejoice and give thanks. It’s true – life is not always good, it is unfair, painful, and sometimes really hard. But when we learn to maintain an attitude of thankfulness, we can look at all that life offers and put a great big Y-E-S! over it.  

I agree with the person who said: “In the end, when we die, maybe we’ll be judged not by what we accomplished during our lifetimes – the jobs we held, the music or the books we wrote, or other accomplishments – but by how thankful we were to have lived. Somehow, as I grow older that seems important to me. I don’t want to die as one who wasn’t grateful, who didn’t appreciate everything while he had it.” (John Killinger,”The Healing Power of Grattitude,” 30GoodMinutes.org).

                Let us join together now in a Great Thanksgiving of commuion and our offering of grateful giving.

THANKFUL -- ON SUCH A DAY AS THIS

                After all night in the ER I had surgery on Thanksgiving morning. Late that night I reviewed the day and asked myself, is there anything I can be thankful for on such a day as this? Immediately I thought of my wife and daughter, my brother, the neighbors, and of course our church family that I knew would provide great support.

Then, it occurred to me that this experience drove me to thanksgiving for the fundamentals of living. For example, I couldn’t eat the thanksgiving noon meal because it was too soon after surgery,  but that night when I lifted the lid on the tray I was struck by the beautiful sight of green, orange, white, and brown foods, and then savored the taste and texture of the food. It brought me joy. I remembered that C S Lewis had said that such moments of joy, or bliss, or ecstasy, whether it’s the food we eat, a striking sunset, or a thrilling symphony, our senses give us moments of joy that are pointers to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).

                Then I remembered the primary gift that I had received that day. A powerful, deadly enemy had captured my body and there was nothing that I could do to get rid of it. I could not repent of my illness, or confess it, and remove it. I needed help, not from just anyone, but from someone capable of dealing with this enemy. And I gave thanks for a highly skilled surgeon and his team.

                As I continued to reflect on my experience, some of our study of Romans in the Senior Group came to mind. Paul spent the first three chapters of Romans pounding home the fact that we have all been captured by a powerful enemy, an enemy he calls sin, that intends death for us, and we have no way of dealing with it. We have been captured and we cannot repent of our captivity and by this escape. We need help. Realizing this, Paul cried out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And the answer came, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:24).

                God sent the Great Physician who did what no one else could do. Paul put it this way: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6, 8).

                For this reason, the Lord’s Supper, which reminds us of this, has traditionally been called, “The Great Thanksgiving.” God has given us life through the gift of his one and only son and at this table, now, we can say “Thank You.”