Tag: Thanksgiving

Posted on

A Cup of Thanksgiving

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you;

Matthew 26:27

Today most of us in America will sit down in a tradition that dates back to the Pilgrims and their dinner of thanksgiving, as they gave thanks to God for bringing them to this new world. We eat turkey and dressing and all the trimmings in remembrance of God’s providence in our lives. The providence that brought us to today. No matter what problems or pains we endure, we’re here. We’re alive and well enough to give thanks.

But for some, today will be a day of mourning, a day of sorrow. People die on and around Thanksgiving just like any other day. What about them? How will they find thankfulness in their hearts for God’s providence? I pray they will. His Providence is always there, but sometimes we have to look through a lot of pain and tears to see it.

It wasn’t easy for those early pilgrims as they braved a new and sometimes hostile world to carve out a life. They built homes and villages, and planted crops and families all to begin again in freedom. They left behind the religious oppression they felt in the old world. And it didn’t matter how hard it would be in the new world, they we’re determined to make a new life…and so they did.

What about you? What about me? Are we determined that no matter what obstacles lay ahead of us that we will make it through in this life? There is only one way to know we can make it through – with faith in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the object of the Pilgrim’s thankfulness, as He should be ours. Nothing we enjoy today comes to us of our own accord, but through His divine providence.

On the last night of His life, Jesus gathered for a traditional meal with his disciples as they celebrated the Passover. But it was not a night like any other. That night, Jesus gathered them not only to remember the deliverance of their ancestors, He gathered them to deliver them. As Jesus celebrated His last Passover with them, He was celebrating His first Eucharist with them – His first Thanksgiving with them.

The Eucharist is known by many names, Holy Communion, The Lord’s Supper, or simply Communion. But Eucharist was the name given by the first Christians, and they gave it that name for a reason. In their common Greek language, “Eucharistia” meant Thanksgiving. That night, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for them both. He was thanking the Father for His own body about to be broken and His own blood about to be shed.

I wonder if we can do that today? Can we gather together with friends and family and raise a cup of Thanksgiving for what is about to happen? None of us knows what tomorrow may bring. For some it will bring great loneliness having passed the first holiday without a loved one who died. For others it will bring great joy as they move into the season of Advent and Christmas, with hearts full of hope.

Whatever your lot is today, I pray you will not only see Pilgrims and Turkeys, but that you will see a broken lamb giving thanks to God for you and your life. A life He died to save, and not just to save but to save for an everlasting life filled with joy, and the fulfillment of our original creation. So today, let us lift a cup of Thanksgiving to the one thing for which we should be most thankful – eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Pastor Brad

Posted on

Name Above All Names

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will tell of all thy wonderful deeds.

2 I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High.

Psalm 9:1-3

Psalm 9 offers the reader three themes that are recurrent in many Psalms: thanksgiving with a whole heart, telling the story of God’s wonderful deeds, and praising His Most Holy Name. These three themes are one of the reasons the Psalms make the perfect prayer book of God’s people. The writers of the Psalms were inspired to praise God in these three ways as the prophetic voice of Jesus. As our Messiah, Jesus showed us how to live by modeling the very prayers of the Psalms.

The inspiration of the Psalmist’s prayers seems to be the righteousness of God as He judges from his divine, everlasting throne, “4 For thou hast maintained my just cause; thou hast sat on the throne giving righteous judgment.” So too, as we pray through the psalms our hearts should be quickened to offer praise and thanksgiving to God as we remember and tell of his amazing grace extended in our lives.

Psalm 9 was originally written as an acrostic. The first word of each stanza was formed with a word using the Hebrew alphabet. No doubt Psalm 9 and 10 in most Protestant Bibles was originally one Psalm in the original Greek Septuagint version, which dates from 250 BC. This is why the numbers of the Psalms are off by one following the 9th in the Catholic Bibles, which use the Septuagint version for the Old Testament.

By using the Acrostic form of poetry, the Psalmist was giving praise to God with a view to the whole of life. As you consider the beautiful praise offered in Psalm 9 today, think about your life? How have God’s righteous judgments blessed and protected you from your enemies? How have you contemplated the holiness of His Name? St. Paul reminds us that the name of Jesus is above all names and given the highest glory in heaven, and that every knee shall one day bow to His great name (Phil. 2:10).

Remember, the psalmist praised God from the midst of his tribulation. He didn’t wait until God delivered him to offer praise. Rather, he offered praise for the time when he knew he would be delivered.

13 Be gracious to me, O LORD! Behold what I suffer from those who hate me, O thou who liftest me up from the gates of death,

14 that I may recount all thy praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in thy deliverance.

What a difference it makes to praise God from the midst of our storm and not wait until after it passes. To praise God in the storm is to live by faith, and living by faith is the highest form of praise, for then, we are truly trusting in the name above all names.

Shalom,

Pastor Brad

image credit: http://kevron2001.deviantart.com/art/Name-above-all-names-281053941

 

Posted on

Where Does All the Madness End?

Further thoughts on Luke 12;                                                                                    Click Here to Read This Week’s Gospel: Luke 12:16-2

Black Friday

I started this week with an intention to be thankful for what I have been given in this life. No, not the stuff (but, yes that too), but the real gifts: family, freedom, shelter, food, and of course, love. Thanks to meditating on Jesus’ parable about the Rich Fool in Luke 12, I have managed to be more thankful than usual. In my meditating, I also started wondering how much and how soon all this bounty we enjoy in America might go away, if we stay on our present political course. Let’s face it, for all the slams capitalism has received by the current Administration, it is what built our freedom and plenty. That, coupled with an understanding  it all happened by God’s grace (which as a nation we have totally taken for granted) brought me to a place of anger this day after Thanksgiving.

Why am I angry? Because like the fool in the parable, we ought to know better. Just like the fact that no communist/socialist economy in the world has ever produced the kind of success in science and industry capitalism has in the West, so too no other Western nation has ever produced the freedom the United States has. And, what have we done with our freedom? If the advertisements on Thanksgiving week TV are any indication we’ve used them to further fuel greed in the masses.

I spent over 18 years in the retail industry in my young working career (before entering the ordained ministry). I worked every day after Thanksgiving; it was always the biggest shopping day of the year. BUT…our store didn’t open till 8AM, AND there were no mobs beating down the doors to get inside. No one was trampling over their fellow man to grab a supposedly incredible deal item out of the hands of another. There was almost something beautiful about it. Were the retailers greedy? Sure. But they were sane about how they went about it.

Where does the madness end? Now retailers can’t even wait until Friday. Many big box stores are opening on Thanksgiving Day! Pretty soon there won’t be a Thanksgiving Day because no one will have time to cook; they’ll all be out shopping for early “Black Thursday” deals. And, then it will be Black Wednesday, Tuesday and so on. Get the picture? Like the fool in the parable, greed has taken over our thankfulness.

Where does all the madness end? I guess, when like in the parable, God says to us all, “You fool, this night your soul will be required of you.” I pray we don’t get to that point. I pray we wake up and take time to smell the coffee on Friday morning. Then, relax and enjoy a second cup as we reflect on the wonderful time we had on Thursday with our families. I did. And, that’s what I plan to do next year, and the year after that, and so on and so on, unless and until the Lord puts a stop to the madness one way or another.

It doesn’t have to come to that, you know.We can put a stop to the madness. Next year, you can refuse to go out and shop on Thanksgiving Day. Just stay home, relax and enjoy your family. There will always be another deal.