This year for Thanksgiving, Americans are being given a treat (or is it a trick?). This year, you don’t have to wait until Black Friday to do your Christmas shopping. You can sit at the dinner table Thanksgiving Day, eat as fast as you can and then head to the mall to be there in time for all the pre-Black Friday deals that start the minute you finish doing the dishes. And, that’s assuming one waits that long to head out.
It really is sad what has happened to this day that President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 declared as a “day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” (from Proclamation of President Lincoln, October 1863). Do you realize that Thanksgiving, historically and traditionally, has been a day set aside for of all things — giving thanks? I guess if Lincoln were to look at what has become of this Thanksgiving Day, he probably would shake his head, stroke his beard and give us a lesson on what it means to give thanks.
It is sad, but true: Thanksgiving has lost its focus. Many instead refer to Thanksgiving as “turkey day.” We have so much to be thankful for, and we reduce this day of thanks to focus on a Butterball in the oven, stuffing ourselves (as well as the turkey), maybe have a cigar or two, loosen the belt, watch football, belch, have dessert, watch more football, let the tryptophan kick in, and then, after our nap, head to the mall. Gee, you tell me, has Thanksgiving gone afoul?
Amazing how quickly we forget the words of the Psalmist, “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is God, and His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 107). A noted time-management guru once said for managers it is better to do a little often than to save for the big push. The same can be said of us. Why wait for Thanksgiving? Wouldn’t it be better for us to give thanks to God, who provides all that we need to support this body and life (Martin Luther’s explanation to Apostle’s Creed), every day than store it up for one day a year? I know in my life, I have so much to be thankful for — a loving wife, children, roof over my head, running water, health, friends, and my list can go on for pages and pages. I am sure yours can, too.
This Thanksgiving, may people will give thanks to God before they cut into the turkey, even those who have little to do with God will say some sort of prayer of thanks. But when the day is over, when the games on TV are done, the cigar is gone (except for the odor), how many of us will remember to give thanks to the Lord for He is good?
We truly can thank our loving God this Thanksgiving, that His love for us as seen in the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus is not seasonal. That our Lord has saved us from sin, death and the devil and opened the way of heaven for us as the name of Jesus is the only name under heaven by which we are saved.
So, let me encourage you, give thanks to the Lord, not just on this national day of thanks. Make every day a thanksgiving day for all the Lord has done and continues to do for us. Because God is good all the time. All the time, God is good!
The Rev. Dean R. Pfeffer is the senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church, Plant City. For more, email him at hopepcpastor@gmail.com.