Thanksgiving is just about my favorite holiday. I greatly enjoy turkey and stuffing and all the accompaniments. I have fond memories of crisp, fall Thanksgiving mornings spent in the Pennsylvania woods hunting small game and preparing for the start of deer hunting the following Monday morning. I love the time spent with family (although that is true for other holidays as well). Another thing I’ve always appreciated about Thanksgiving is the fact that we have this one major, religiously oriented holiday that is totally unencumbered by arguments about pagan origins, Roman Catholic practices, the application of the regulative principle and, at least until recent years, pretty “uncommercialized.” We just simply have a national tradition of setting aside a special day devoted to giving thanks to God. In my thinking, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with that!
Giving thanks is a one of our most fundamental obligations as God’s creatures. The importance of thanksgiving is emphasized again and again in the scriptures. It is particularly incumbent upon believers in Christ, who have been saved by God’s grace through the redemptive work of Christ, to give thanks continually. True thankfulness is an open acknowledgement that we are completely dependent upon God. We are recognizing that whatever good we have, it comes from God’s hand and it comes freely, since He owes us nothing. We, as creatures, could never place ourselves in a position in which God would be obliged to us. All that we receive, including life itself, flows only from His free goodness and mercy. The practice of thanksgiving directs our hearts away from ourselves and toward God, in praise and humble gratitude. It is the opposite of complaining and discontent. It is impossible to be thankful and grumbling at the same time. It is impossible to be both thankful and covetous at the same time. So, thanksgiving signals a right attitude towards God and, at the same time, helps us to align our hearts, rightly, towards God, the giver of all good things.
Conversely, ingratitude or unthankfulness toward God is one of the fundamental characteristics of unrighteousness. Romans 1:21, standing at the head of a sobering description of man’s sinful depravity, starts with “Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.” These phrases are practically synonymous. To fail to return regular thanks to God is to fail to honor Him as God. Such ingratitude is fundamental to our sin-nature and rebellion against God. It expresses our unwillingness to let God be God and to acknowledge our own creatureliness. According to Paul, it represents the negative counterpart to idolatry. Failing to rightly honor the true God, man turns to false gods, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. So, the giving of thanks to God is more than just a nice sentiment. It is a fundamental, moral obligation of every moral agent in creation.
The religious and moral landscape of America has changed, drastically, since Washington’s proclamation, in 1789, making Thanksgiving an official national holiday. In some ways, having a national day of Thanksgiving may seem passé – a throw-back to an earlier time when there was a greater level of national piety and public recognition of God in our culture and politics. Today, America is sinking in a morass of moral relativism. A fairly large segment of our society is not only indifferent to the things of God but downright hostile toward the truth of God. We’ve elevated the god of self-fulfillment and set aside standards of Scripture for self-government as well as civil government. We celebrate Thanksgiving, but do we really know and acknowledge, in our daily living, the God to whom all thanks and praise is due? For many, I fear, the idea of thanksgiving is more about a vague sense of gratitude – toward no one in particular and for no particular reason they can explain – rather than a deeply religious act of worship directed to the true and living God.
Yet, it is a blessing that Thanksgiving continues to be a prominent observance among us. I am thankful for such a day that bears testimony, every year, to the fact that our forefathers were convinced of the importance of a national expression of gratitude to God – that we, as a people, acknowledge our dependence on God and humbly give thanks for His blessings. I’m glad that this occasion stands as an annual reminder that we truly ought to be thankful to God, whether we are or not. The very existence of such a holiday – of such a sentiment among us – testifies that there really is someone to be thankful to and that we were created to render worship to this great and gracious God.
The annual observance of a day of Thanksgiving is like a cultural reminder that, no matter how much we might wish to, we cannot escape from the reality of who we really are and who God really is. We are the dependent creatures, bound to love, honor and worship the Creator. God, alone, is sovereign, holy, self-existent and worthy of all praise and thanks; honor and glory. We have, indeed, failed to honor Him as God and give thanks as we ought. We have exalted ourselves, served ourselves and lived without regard to God or His holy law. Yet, God gave His finest, most precious gift by giving His own Son to die for sinners that we might be forgiven and restored. This is cause for thanks and praise indeed. “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.”