Thanksgiving Day
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons:
With an Eye to the New
Thanksgiving is a response to what God has done. It is not centered primarily in how we feel, so that there can be times when we do not feel thankful. And it is not an expression of gratitude for what we have been able to accomplish, so that we remain the subject of the action. No. Thanksgiving, according to the scriptures, has as its motivation, center, and subject the actions of the Lord. And because that is true, we can always give thanks.
Thanksgiving is, moreover, in the scriptures a public witness to the actions of God. The Israelites of the Old Testament never felt that God had been properly thanked for his deeds unless they told others about what God had done and thus glorified God's name in the eyes of others. So it is that we find in the Psalms of Thanksgiving public testimonies to what God has performed, and the necessity of telling others about those acts.
Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. Psalm 66:16; cf. Psalm 116:14, 18-19
The case is similar here with regard to our text for the morning. There is no doubt in this passage as to who is the subject of thanks. It is "the Lord your God" -- a phrase repeated eight times, and the whole passage centers on God's deeds. In fulfillment of his promise to the patriarchs (v. 3), God has given the worshiper the land (v. 1) and all its produce (v. 11). He has chosen the place where thanks is to be rendered, namely in Jerusalem (v. 2). He has multiplied the descendants of Israel, and delivered them from bondage in Egypt, leading them through the terrors of the wilderness, and bringing them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey (vv. 5-9). And so God is to be thanked and praised in joy (v. 11) for all his saving acts.
That thanks takes the form of the offering of the first fruits of produce from the land which the Lord God has given the worshiper. In recognition of the fact that the land belongs not to Israel, but to the Lord (Leviticus 25:23; Exodus 20:8-11), the law of Israel stipulates that all first fruits of the ground are to be offered to the Lord (Exodus 23:19; 34:26). And that offering, here in our text, takes the form of a public ceremony in the temple, in which the worshiper brings his gifts and makes the public confession of faith that is found in verses 5-9.
The confession that we find in these latter verses is probably one of the oldest confessions to be found in the Old Testament. It follows the narrative of Israel's history that we find in the Hexateuch, or first six books, of the Bible. And by the events that are mentioned, it shows us what Israel considered to be the absolutely decisive acts of God in her past history: the wanderings of the patriarch Jacob, who went down to Egypt; the multiplication of the population in Egypt; the attention of God to his enslaved people's cries for deliverance; the Lord's redemption of them out of slavery, "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders"; and his gift of the promised land to them in the time of Joshua.
Those are the principal acts of God that formed Israel's faith in the beginning and that sustained her through all of the following years. None of them were acts on Israel's behalf that she deserved. And, as Deuteronomy 7:6-8 states, all were done by God for two reasons. First, he heeded Israel's cries for redemption from slavery simply because he chose Israel to be his special people and he loved them. Second, he redeemed Israel and led her to the promised land in order to fulfill the promise that he first gave to Abraham. At the core here of Israel's faith is a confession that testifies that her God is a faithful God, keeping his promise, and a loving God, bestowing his grace on a people who have done nothing to deserve it.
Are we not also able to make such a confession, that God has chosen us to be his people simply out of love, apart from any deserving on our part, and then has redeemed us also from our slavery -- not our slavery in Egypt, but our slavery to sin and death by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ? We Christians too have a past full of the saving acts of God, to which we can make grateful response on this Thanksgiving Day. We confess all of those acts every time we recite the Apostles' Creed together: "his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Oh, yes, we too have a confession of faith that tells publicly of all the deeds that God has done on our behalf.
Some of you also have a private confession that you can make, do you not -- an account of the acts of love that God has worked in your own particular life? How he has granted you gifts and good running over, preserved your spirit through trouble and suffering, guided you away from temptation, or given you the certain hope, when you have lost a loved one, that death never marks a final goodbye. I think we all could at this moment make a public acknowledgement of the mercies that God has shown to us. I hope you tell other people about those deeds of the Lord your God, and thus bring glory to his name.
But above all else, we Christians have those basic facts about God's acts in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that form the very center, motivation, and content of our faith. And that brings us to the most startling aspect of our text for the morning.
If you will listen carefully to this text, you will notice that the pronouns suddenly change, as the confession is recited. The worshiper starts off talking about the past. "A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt ... and there he became a nation...." But then suddenly, the account becomes personal; the pronouns change: "And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and ... we cried to the Lord ... and the Lord heard our voice...." Suddenly the past is no longer past for this Israelite worshiper. It has become his present. He is there in Egypt; the Lord has delivered him from slavery, and brought him into the promised land.
And that is the way the story of our salvation in the Bible also works for us. When we read the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, for example, that is not a meal taking place in the past. Suddenly we are there, eating and drinking with our Lord, receiving his new covenant in his blood, but also hearing that one of us will betray him. Or when we hear the story of the crucifixion, are we not also there at the foot of the cross, hearing Jesus' final prayer, "Father, forgive them ..."? And do we not find ourselves also forgiven by that sacrifice? The Negro spiritual has it right, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Yes, indeed, we were there. And "sometimes it causes me to tremble."
God's merciful acts of salvation, recorded for us in the scriptures, are not just past events. They are also deeds done for us right now, "this day," as our text says (v. 3). We now are chosen by God to be his special people. Our cries to him for deliverance are now, this day, heard by him. And we now, undeserving though we may be, are delivered from our slavery to all of our sins, and from our final slavery to the power of death.
So give thanks to God on this Thanksgiving Day, good Christians. For he has delivered us "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." Praise his name, and glorify him forever!
Thanksgiving is, moreover, in the scriptures a public witness to the actions of God. The Israelites of the Old Testament never felt that God had been properly thanked for his deeds unless they told others about what God had done and thus glorified God's name in the eyes of others. So it is that we find in the Psalms of Thanksgiving public testimonies to what God has performed, and the necessity of telling others about those acts.
Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. Psalm 66:16; cf. Psalm 116:14, 18-19
The case is similar here with regard to our text for the morning. There is no doubt in this passage as to who is the subject of thanks. It is "the Lord your God" -- a phrase repeated eight times, and the whole passage centers on God's deeds. In fulfillment of his promise to the patriarchs (v. 3), God has given the worshiper the land (v. 1) and all its produce (v. 11). He has chosen the place where thanks is to be rendered, namely in Jerusalem (v. 2). He has multiplied the descendants of Israel, and delivered them from bondage in Egypt, leading them through the terrors of the wilderness, and bringing them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey (vv. 5-9). And so God is to be thanked and praised in joy (v. 11) for all his saving acts.
That thanks takes the form of the offering of the first fruits of produce from the land which the Lord God has given the worshiper. In recognition of the fact that the land belongs not to Israel, but to the Lord (Leviticus 25:23; Exodus 20:8-11), the law of Israel stipulates that all first fruits of the ground are to be offered to the Lord (Exodus 23:19; 34:26). And that offering, here in our text, takes the form of a public ceremony in the temple, in which the worshiper brings his gifts and makes the public confession of faith that is found in verses 5-9.
The confession that we find in these latter verses is probably one of the oldest confessions to be found in the Old Testament. It follows the narrative of Israel's history that we find in the Hexateuch, or first six books, of the Bible. And by the events that are mentioned, it shows us what Israel considered to be the absolutely decisive acts of God in her past history: the wanderings of the patriarch Jacob, who went down to Egypt; the multiplication of the population in Egypt; the attention of God to his enslaved people's cries for deliverance; the Lord's redemption of them out of slavery, "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders"; and his gift of the promised land to them in the time of Joshua.
Those are the principal acts of God that formed Israel's faith in the beginning and that sustained her through all of the following years. None of them were acts on Israel's behalf that she deserved. And, as Deuteronomy 7:6-8 states, all were done by God for two reasons. First, he heeded Israel's cries for redemption from slavery simply because he chose Israel to be his special people and he loved them. Second, he redeemed Israel and led her to the promised land in order to fulfill the promise that he first gave to Abraham. At the core here of Israel's faith is a confession that testifies that her God is a faithful God, keeping his promise, and a loving God, bestowing his grace on a people who have done nothing to deserve it.
Are we not also able to make such a confession, that God has chosen us to be his people simply out of love, apart from any deserving on our part, and then has redeemed us also from our slavery -- not our slavery in Egypt, but our slavery to sin and death by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ? We Christians too have a past full of the saving acts of God, to which we can make grateful response on this Thanksgiving Day. We confess all of those acts every time we recite the Apostles' Creed together: "his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Oh, yes, we too have a confession of faith that tells publicly of all the deeds that God has done on our behalf.
Some of you also have a private confession that you can make, do you not -- an account of the acts of love that God has worked in your own particular life? How he has granted you gifts and good running over, preserved your spirit through trouble and suffering, guided you away from temptation, or given you the certain hope, when you have lost a loved one, that death never marks a final goodbye. I think we all could at this moment make a public acknowledgement of the mercies that God has shown to us. I hope you tell other people about those deeds of the Lord your God, and thus bring glory to his name.
But above all else, we Christians have those basic facts about God's acts in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that form the very center, motivation, and content of our faith. And that brings us to the most startling aspect of our text for the morning.
If you will listen carefully to this text, you will notice that the pronouns suddenly change, as the confession is recited. The worshiper starts off talking about the past. "A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt ... and there he became a nation...." But then suddenly, the account becomes personal; the pronouns change: "And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and ... we cried to the Lord ... and the Lord heard our voice...." Suddenly the past is no longer past for this Israelite worshiper. It has become his present. He is there in Egypt; the Lord has delivered him from slavery, and brought him into the promised land.
And that is the way the story of our salvation in the Bible also works for us. When we read the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, for example, that is not a meal taking place in the past. Suddenly we are there, eating and drinking with our Lord, receiving his new covenant in his blood, but also hearing that one of us will betray him. Or when we hear the story of the crucifixion, are we not also there at the foot of the cross, hearing Jesus' final prayer, "Father, forgive them ..."? And do we not find ourselves also forgiven by that sacrifice? The Negro spiritual has it right, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Yes, indeed, we were there. And "sometimes it causes me to tremble."
God's merciful acts of salvation, recorded for us in the scriptures, are not just past events. They are also deeds done for us right now, "this day," as our text says (v. 3). We now are chosen by God to be his special people. Our cries to him for deliverance are now, this day, heard by him. And we now, undeserving though we may be, are delivered from our slavery to all of our sins, and from our final slavery to the power of death.
So give thanks to God on this Thanksgiving Day, good Christians. For he has delivered us "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." Praise his name, and glorify him forever!
