Thanksgivng, year of our Lord 2005
I live in part of the country that has four seasons, and we have now entered into the foggy and rainy portion. What a glorious thing fog is! We are fast approaching the time when this fog will freeze to the trees, and we will have our hoarfrost, and entire town covered in rime.
My wife’s parents are driving here for our Thanksgiving feast, and we will have four generations gathered around our table, all four generations trusting in the Lord Jesus for their salvation from sin. Three and four generations are just the down payment because God promises thousands of generations to those who love and fear Him. At the center of what it means to fear God is gratitude. The fear that has to do with punishment is cast out by love, but the fear/awe that recognizes what God has done for us, and has promised to continue to do for us in the future, is a fear that spills over into gratitude.
We will sit down at a heavily-laden table (to my wife, all honor) and we will solemnly maintain that the God of heaven gave all this to us, and He did so because He wanted to bless us. This is simply outrageous. What kind of hubris would claim that the triune God who spoke countless galaxies into existence paid any attention whatever to how our turkey and potatoes got to our house? But this is not self-promotion. We do not claim that God gave us these things to celebrate with because we are somehow up there on His level. We have learned through Jesus that our God is the God who stoops. He became a man (this next Lord’s Day is the first Sunday of Advent) and He partook of meals, just like we do. He celebrated annual feasts, just like we do. In partaking as He did, He sanctified all things, including the blessing of sitting down with family (along with honorary family members for the day) and eating the fullness that God supplies.
Thanks to God for His indescribable gift. It is the gift of Christ, given for sinful men, that enables us to give thanks as we ought for all the other gifts He gives us, down to the smallest holiday tangerines. We have already gone through several boxes.