Day of Thanksgiving
KJV 1 Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 7 Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. 8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
KJV Luke 17:11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
Thanksgiving
The Hymn #574
The Invocation p. 15
The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Epistle and Gradual 1 Timothy 2:1-8
The Gospel Luke 17:11-28
Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
The Sermon Hymn #36
The Sermon
Enter His Courts with Thanksgiving
The Offertory p. 22
The Hymn #304
The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn #52
KJV Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise unto the LORD,
all ye lands.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness:
come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the LORD he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth to all generations.
Luther often commented that our biggest failing is lack of thanks toward God. The pivotal points for an official Day of Thanksgiving are the first Pilgrim’s gathering and later the official pronouncement of President Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War.
The first Thanksgiving developed from a host of bad rulers in England. Looking back, we can see God’s foresight in providing the Stuart kings, who “left an indelible bad impression on England.” They are the kings who followed Queen Elisabeth I, a monarch so powerful that the pope admired her. King James I gave us the KJV, but he worked to make England a Roman Catholic country again. This was completely devious and dishonest, causing two good things to develop. One was the periodic flight of Protestants to America to enjoy religious freedom. The other was the loss of royal authority and the increase of Parliamentary power. The colonists came to America with a new concept of religion. They were Christian, but they did not want their political leaders to control religion. They even established denominations in the colonies that became states. The separation of Church and State that President Jefferson pledged was a promise to keep the federal government from meddling in religious affairs.
The Stuart follies did not stop with King James I. He was followed by King Charles I and II, who also tried to undermine Protestantism. Finally the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary put an end to these furtive efforts to re-establish Rome. The loss of royal power during this era fed the democratic principles of America.
Because the slavery issue was not resolved in America as it was in England (by the Methodist Wilberforce’s life-long efforts), we had to face a horrible Civil War. Many people forget that we lost more Americans in that war than in all our foreign wars put together. The only other war more savage has been the one against unborn babies.
The Pilgrims barely had a home in America when they stopped to give thanks to God for their new opportunities. Lincoln was still facing disaster when he asked the nation to give thanks to God. He proclaimed:
It is the duty of nations as well as of men to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness:
come before his presence with singing.
Being thankful to God is difficult in two different ways. When everything is going well for us, we grow slothful or boastful and think all of it comes from our wisdom, hard work, and foresight. Wealthy people often become godless because everyone treats them as gods. In Fiddler on the Roof, the poor dairyman wishes he were rich so that everyone would pay attention to his words of wisdom.
Another difficulty is being thankful to God during times of trial. That is always relative to the individual. Whatever goodness comes our way we treat as a natural right, until it is gone. We do not even thank God for those benefits until they are missing. Then we are resentful that the bounty is gone. We may have more than most of the people who ever lived and yet feel slighted. Or we may be healthier than most people our age and still feel abnormally ill or weak.
The people with the fewest physical blessings are often the happiest, not because they are without pain, suffering, discomfort, or the difficulties of requiring care. They are the happiest because they are grateful for what they have rather than bitter about what they lack. Brenda Kiehler often mentioned how precious the Gospel was to her, since she really had nothing else. She lived in constant pain, could not take care of her own personal needs, and faced various surgeries that only managed problems for a short time. What mattered most to Brenda? She worried about everyone else. That was her most effective pain therapy. (Her birthday is November 26th.)
Being a little older provides some perspective. My wife and I have outlived many friends and relatives, the same age or much younger. Many years ago my first cousin went out berry picking with his wife and his mother. My cousin was newly married. Later that day his wife died of heat prostration. We thought the news was about his elderly mother, but that was not so. Three young people from my congregation in Sturgis died from needless auto accidents: a new car malfunction, two different drunk drivers. The congregation only had about 60 members, but they lost three teens in a few years. In Midland a young mother, who seemed to have everything and who cared for others, was stricken by fatal cancer only a few years after she visited our daughter Erin in the hospital. In fact, a nurse who cared for Erin soon joined her as a patient in the same area, the intermediate care facility.
When we lose people or face the loss of someone dear to us, we realize how God has created a soul, a unique person, never to be repeated nor forgotten. One of the great tragedies of this age has been the denial of this truth. Therefore, when a child is lost, even due to natural or unavoidable causes, there is a deep sense of loss. Someone unique has begun life. As Professor Nagel said at a Concordia, St. Louis lecture, “Every soul has a name,” speaking of infant baptism. Every single soul has a purpose because God created everything through Christ for that very reason.
3 Know ye that the LORD he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Creation and thanksgiving go together, because the awesome nature of God’s design helps us look beyond the immediate problems of the day. Right now our tangelo tree is ripening. The lemons are not because of the record freeze we had last January. For some reason the tangelo tree escaped damage and produced a record number of individual fruits.
We get to enjoy two phases of the citrus season. The first one happens when all the citrus in Phoenix bloom over a few weeks’ time. The air is heavily scented everywhere, since citrus grows almost without effort here. The aroma is one of the best in Creation, neither heavy nor sweet. Later the little green fruits appear. The long growing season ends with fruit impossible to resist, far better than anything in a grocery store.
The trees should make us thankful to God because their growth, flowering, and fruiting are all accomplished without any help from me, except for a little watering. (My neighbors provide most of the ground moisture through their efforts.) The bees arrive on time to pollinate. The fruits form, take color, and sweeten from the energy of the sun. What is more astounding? – the infinite complexity of the solar system and our main energy source, the sun? or the mutual dependencies of soil, water, rain, insects, molds, birds, butterflies, and lizards?
Now that the weather has changed for the worse in many places, people are angry that we do not live in paradise. They even want to make man the cause of the earth warming and cooling. If 99% of what God provides is good for us, we are angry with the 1% that does not seem pleasing and beneficial at the moment. Faith means trusting in what we do not see and know at the moment, trusting in God’s foresight and His loving-kindness.
KJV Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
This means that nothing happens outside of God’s purpose, design, and benevolence. What confuses people is the impact of man’s sinful nature. As Luther wrote, we live in a world of deceit and greed. Therefore people are always been deceived and cheated. Yet God is so powerful that He can and does use the worst experiences as a blessing. Sometimes He strengthens us for the future. At other times He makes us more compassionate, patient, and understanding. We do not have to listen to His guidance. Most people do not. One LCA pastor told me, “Use others before they use you.” That was his model, and he was outwardly successful. The same minister thought the Feeding of the 5,000 was a “miracle of sharing,” meaning that Jesus did not feed the multitude. They were ashamed of their parsimony and took out their hidden lunches when the boy shared his. (That verse is missing from the KJV and even the feminist NIV!)
First of all, God gives us our material needs, which is so much His nature that He takes care of unbelievers and believers alike.
KJV Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For those who are called according to His purpose, God provides an abundance of spiritual help. We are weak, frail creatures, easily discouraged. If we were left on our own, to trust our knowledge, feelings, and experiences, we would desert God in a moment. Look at the disciples on the boat with Jesus in a storm-tossed sea. They relied on their knowledge of the Sea of Galilee, the experience as fishermen, their memories of lost friends and relatives. In a word, they panicked. They shook Jesus awake and accused Him of not caring if they drowned. His response? “O ye of little faith!” They trusted in everything except Christ. They relied on the most unreliable and accused the Lord of Creation of not caring.
When we trust our own knowledge and feelings, we are like the engineer who used to walk across oil storage tanks. They have fabric on top. His inspections meant that he walked across waving, toxic pillars of petroleum. If he had stepped on a tear in the fabric, he would have slipped into thousands of gallons of oil, a bad career move. Our generation has never tired of saying, “Trust your feelings. Go with your feelings.” Contrariwise, they also insist, “Do not trust the Word of God until you judge it with your own experience and knowledge.” Human reason soon makes a fine mess of the Scriptures, which cannot be like anything manufactured or imagined by man. So the overwhelming voice today is to guide us to walk across the shimmering mass of toxins called human experience while avoiding the bedrock of Christ. “On this bedrock I will build My Church.” (Matthew 16. The bedrock is Christ, not Peter, not Peter’s confession.)
To provide us with good spiritual guidance, God has given us His Word in many forms. First of all He made sure that we would have the precise revelation of His will, preserved with amazing precision, written for all time in the Scriptures. No other ancient book has been transmitted so well. No world religion compares to Christianity. The Christian faith is not better or superior. The Christian faith is simply the unique truth of the universe. Everything else is simply a bad imitation.
Every day we should thank God for the Gospels and for the other books of the New Testament, not to mention the Old Testament. The Gospels teach us about Christ and His love for us. They convey Christ to us. God has bound His Holy Spirit to the Word so we can be sure that He is always at work in the Gospel message. When they convey Christ to us, the Scriptures also bring forgiveness. That faith which was implanted in most of us at baptism, as babies, is renewed and strengthened with the often told story of Christ’s death and resurrection. Some were converted as adults and then baptized. In both cases the Word converted us to faith. The Word has preserved that faith.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
Thanksgiving is another word for Holy Communion. Many people call it the Eucharist, after the Greek word for thanksgiving. If I know someone is Greek, I say, “Ev-char-isto,” modern Greek for “I thank you.” One woman was overwhelmed and kept thanking me for saying one word in her language.
Thanksgiving is a good word for the sacrament because we should come to communion with hearts thankful to God. In Luther’s time people disputed the nature of Holy Communion, since that was under attack by the papacy. At one point Luther said, “Do not concentrate on the elements but on the Word. The Word is the power of the sacrament – given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.”
People get distracted by other issues when they should concentrate on what God has done, how He loves His own people for loving His Son. What we fail to see here and now will be revealed in the time to come. We always know:
5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth to all generations.
