I just recently finished peeling the potatoes for the feast later on, and I note in passing that the way my wife makes bashed potatoes is one of her innumerable glories. Having made my contribution to the process, which stretched and almost exceeded the limit of my culinary abilities, I have thought it necessary to sit down and register again how grateful I am. Gratitude is as sturdy and as good as the potatoes, and about the only thing I could think of to make the gratitude better would be some butter or gravy. But I shouldn’t run ahead.
There are two kinds of thanksgiving. The first is the harvest home kind of thanksgiving, which even nonbelievers can have some share in (Acts 17:26-27). All of God’s common grace is an invitation to grateful response, and once the gift is past, once the gift is actually given, it doesn’t take the eye of faith to see its physical presence. The gift is given, and it only takes the ungrateful eye to deny it.
Because Christians are men, they share in the common duty to give thanks for what is already gathered in the barn, for the wages already earned, for the liberties already secured, for the family already gathered around.
The blessings I have received in this category are innumerable — salvation in Christ, a place among God’s people, a faithful congregation, parents who know God and who see the world rightly, a wife above rubies, children and grandchildren who all love and fear the Lord, spouses for my children who have brought additional blessings to a family already laden down with them, material plenty and, as a covenantal representative of all that, a table this afternoon groaning under the weight of the bestowed goodness, a table surrounded by laughter, which is just more bestowed goodness.
But there is also thanksgiving by faith, thanksgiving offered for what God will do in the future. The hymn rightly says that we don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future and, given the days we are in, it is a great blessing to know by way of corollary who does not hold the future — despite all pretensions otherwise. Obama does not, the UN does not, Congress does not, the bureaucrats at Health and Human Services do not, fraudulent global warming scientists do not, the Taliban does not, the KSM trial in New York does not, conspiracies do not, conspiracy theorists do not, crushing taxes do not, tax revolts do not, Dick Cheney does not, Noam Chomsky does not, and Ozymandias does not. Neither do things present or things to come, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. None of them hold the future.
But the day remains an evil day, and these characters do have to be reckoned with. But the way we reckon with them is by walking as God’s dearly loved children (Eph. 5:1). We are to walk in love (Eph. 5:2), and we are to avoid the moral grime that settles in the sludge pit baths of contemporary entertainment (Eph. 5:3-4). Instead of that loathsome warmth, we are to give ourselves over to what? The giving of thanks (Eph. 5:4). This is because the greedmeisters and the whorehounds do not have the inheritance that we do (Eph. 5:5). Let no emergent preacher smoothie-man deceive you with his pufferies about diversity and personal choice (Eph. 5:6). The wrath of God is coming straight at the children of disobedience, precisely because of their personal choices. So get this straight — the children of light should be overflowing with thanksgiving because the wrath of God is coming.
So don’t be standing too close to them (Eph. 5:7). Don’t partake with them. Walk as children of light (Eph. 5:8). . . the kind of children who give thanks. Bear fruit in accordance with that truth — the fruit being goodness, righteousness, and truth (Eph. 5:9). Show the world what God likes (Eph. 5:10). His wrath will show them what He hates soon enough. Those people who are groping each other in perverse ways in the darkness . . . don’t do anything except expose their shame (Eph. 5:11-12). Light exposes these things, and light does not have to make a lot of noise to do so (Eph. 5:13-14).
So then, Christian, think about your walk. Keep your head up, and look around as you walk (Eph. 5:15). The time must not be wasted, because the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). This thanksgiving that we offer is not because we are deluded about the state of the culture around us. Precisely the opposite. We know how bad it is, and we know that we are to understand what the will of God is concerning us (Eph. 5:17). What does God want from us in the evil day? What does God want from us when the culture is disintegrating around us? He doesn’t want us to deaden the pain with anything like wine — he doesn’t want us coping with cocaine, Central American herbs, prescription pick-me-ups, or the soporific of an endless chain of stupid movies (Eph. 5:18). Neither Huxley’s soma nor feelies will do for us.
No, the days are evil, so what must we do? We must be filled with the Spirit, and we must sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19) because our hearts are full of music. We must — and we come to the point of this post on Thanksgiving Day — render thanks to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. Further, we must give thanks for all things in the evil day. All things. For Obama, for Nancy Pelosi, for the lunatics in the Department of Education. All things. But is this the Pauline form of Winston coming to love Big Brother? As he would put it, me genoito, no way, God forbid. No, let’s jump ahead. What else do we do in the evil day, just a few verses down?
One of the central ways we fight with this weapon is by offering to share it with the enemy. Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.