For what we may be about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful...
Have you ever been really scared? I am not talking about the type of fear you have when you are walking through a haunted house or watching a horror movie. I am talking about the kind of fear that comes when you realize that your own death or downfall could be very imminent. If you have ever been really sick or almost in a fatal accident then you might understand the type of fear I am talking about. It is a horrible feeling to suddenly realize your own mortality or frailty. Most of us go through life without much thought of just how fragile human life really is. We may be aware of death, but for most of us it is at best a distant reality, and not something we worry about on a daily basis. With so many advances in agriculture and medicine and public health we have transformed our society from one whose primary concern is survival into one whose primary concern is comfort. Not that I am complaining.
Personally, I love good food, I like nice clothes, my house is warm and cozy and I just finished a round of antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection. I have no desire to live without the blessings of modern society, but I do think that it is important that we recognize those blessings as such. One of the side effects of the fear, which our ancestors used to live with on a daily basis, was thankfulness. Whenever the threat of imminent death passed by, the natural and immediate response was one of thanksgiving for being spared. If you have ever had a near-miss then you probably know the feeling: that sudden realization that your life is not your own and that it was only by a moment of pure grace that you are still alive. Having your life flash before your eyes is a real and horrifying feeling (and incidentally, it’s one of the reasons that I hate driving), but there is something to be said for that momentary recognition of the power of God’s grace that comes as we realize that we are still OK. True thankfulness only occurs when we recognize that we have been saved by a force completely outside ourselves.
The first Thanksgivings in America were not just harvest celebrations, they were solemn occasions wherein the early settlers truly gave thanks to God for the fact that they were still alive, which was something that they knew they couldn’t take for granted. When you consider that almost half of the English pilgrims that settled in Plymouth Colony died the first winter of malnutrition, disease or exposure, then it makes perfect sense that the survivors would take the time to give thanks for being spared. But the pilgrims at Plymouth were not the first settlers to proclaim a day of thanksgiving: the English settlers in Jamestown and Newfoundland had thanksgivings, as did the French in New France (now Quebec) and the Spanish in Florida. Solemn days of thanksgiving were nothing new to the European settlers that landed in the New World. It was common for communities to set aside days for intentional prayer and thanksgiving whenever they had been delivered from some calamity (like disease or famine). Not all of these thanksgivings were centered around food either, and in fact during some of them participants were actually asked to fast, NOT feast. What they all had in common was that they recognized the fragility of life and how much we as humans (despite all of our skill and cleverness) actually depend upon God’s grace.
During the hurricane a few months ago, I remember hearing a few people comment that it was the first time in their lives that they had actually seen empty shelves in the grocery store. That is really astounding if you stand back and think about it: for most of us we never have to think about not having enough food. Most of us spend our lives obsessed with the reality that we have too much food. We might stop to offer a prayer of thanks for our food, but usually not because we were actually worried that it wouldn’t be there. We take food for granted, along with so many other things. Sometimes it takes a crisis (even a minor one) to remind us that many of the things we enjoy in life are blessings and not promises.
Our world has not always had stores of food that never goes bad. Most of human existence has been about communities struggling to survive, and not just fighting over who gets to be the most comfortable. In some parts of the world, famine is still a very real issue and daily survival is something not to be taken for granted. It would be a shame if in our lives the only time we were truly thankful was when we were scared to death. How much better might our lives be if we realized how much we depend upon God’s grace and the help of our neighbors? Wouldn’t it be better if our lives were filled with that sense of relief and joy that comes from true thankfulness and gratitude?
