We are nearing the time of year when an official holiday is designated for giving thanks. Celebrations include a day off from work, possibly a church service in the morning and a football game in the afternoon, a large mid-day meal, and time spent with family.
The Thanksgiving holiday we observe in the 21st century is actually a combination of three earlier traditions. These are the New England custom of rejoicing after a successful harvest, the commemoration of the Pilgrims’ landing in Massachusetts, and religious observances involving prayer and feasting.
The first thanksgiving was decreed by Governor Bradford in 1621 to commemorate the Pilgrims’ harvest. Later George Washington proclaimed November 26, 1789, as a national day of thanksgiving, but the holiday wasn’t repeated on a national basis until Abraham Lincoln named it a national Harvest Festival on November 26, 1861. After that time, the holiday was proclaimed annually by the President and the governors of each state. Finally, in 1941, Congress passed a bill naming the fourth Thursday of each November as Thanksgiving Day. [1]
The Thanksgiving holiday is one area where our heritage as a nation and our heritage as children of God intersect. The rhythm of pause for gratitude to the Lord is built into our functioning as Americans. This pattern goes all the way back to the earliest people to settle here. They were English Puritans, reverent in their Calvinist faith, and disappointed with the Church of England because attempts at reform didn’t go far enough to model the church of the 1600’s after the ancient church as depicted in the New Testament. These plucky Pilgrims may appear a bit extreme in their radical determination to cling to their vision of a pure church. They risked prison and breaking the law in their defiance of English politics. And yet, they survived with a gentle awareness of God’s provision for them.
This excerpt from a letter written by Edward Winslow, one of the participants in the first thanksgiving, to a friend in England, reinforces their ability to see God’s providence in their experiences:
And God be praised, we had a good increase. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling so that we might rejoice together . . . These things I thought good to let you understand, that you might on our behalf give God thanks who hath dealt so favorable with us. [2]
Imagine that first year as a pilgrim to North America. Most of their colony had left England several years prior and settled in the cities of Holland where they found a nurturing place for their high ideals. But these folks were farmers, and they feared the effects the city would have on their younger generations, so sought a place where they might preserve their culture as well as their religious standards.
The journey meant risk. The arrival on the other side meant hardship since they would be landing in the winter. Half of their group died, consecrating their pious commitments with grief and sorrow. The ones that survived built a village, planted crops, and with the help of their Indian neighbors, reaped a harvest enough to sustain them through the second winter.
But before the temperatures dropped and the cold wind blew snow in from low clouds, the community at Plymouth paused, feasted, and gave thanks for God’s favorable dealings with them.
The experiences of those early settlers teach us to realize what we have. We could just as easily not have it. Health, family, and daily provisions could not be taken for granted in those early years in Plymouth. When those benefits were bestowed, the people understood what they had been given and offered thanks for them. They gave thanks while also enduring grief. There were losses, and they hurt. But the event of this first thanksgiving shows us how to thank the Lord for what we have while also grieving what we’ve lost. Even when the losses appear to outnumber the blessings, we must still choose to offer the Lord our gratitude for who he is and the work he has done.
Like the pilgrims when the seasons changed, we must welcome the seasons of growth. They are straight from the Lord and intended to make us aware of his goodness and his favor.
A traditional Thanksgiving hymn from Germany, written in the 1600’s during a time of war and suffering, helps us understand what it means to give thanks even while dealing with hardship and loss:
Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things hath done, in whom His world rejoices; who from our mothers’ arms hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us; and keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills in this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God the father now be given, the Son and Him who reigns with Them in highest heaven—The one eternal God whom earth and heaven adore—for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
A Thanksgiving Prayer
Father in heaven, we give thanks for life and the experience life brings us.
We thank you for our joys, sorrows, trials, failures, and triumphs.
Above all we thank you for the hope we have in Christ,
that we shall find fulfillment in him.
We praise you for our country, its beauty, the riches it has for us,
and the gifts it showers on us.
We thank you for your peoples, the gift of languages we speak,
The variety of people we have,
The cultural heritage we cherish.
Enable us to use these things for the good of the human race and to bring glory to you.
Through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
[1] Amazing Grace by Kenneth W. Osbeck, p. 349.
[2] The Thanksgiving Primer, a Plimouth Plantation Publication, p. 5.
