November 22, 2023 – Thanksgiving Eve Text: John 1:1-5
Dear Friends in Christ,
Well, here we are on a not liturgically required holiday. Some would say this service is non-essential. Some denominations don’t worship on Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Eve or they may participate in joint worship led by members of the local clergy association.
The holiday was initiated by Abraham Lincoln during the dark days of the Civil War, so the day has this religious significance: God is worthy of thanks even in bad times. Every LCMS church I have ever been associated with has had a Thanksgiving Day or Thanksgiving Eve Worship service. But we still ask the question . . .
“THANKSGIVING DAY CHURCH SERVICES: ARE THEY REALLY NECESSARY?”
For the sake of religious freedom, the Pilgrims fled England first for Holland and then for American with a brief stopover back in England. They landed on Cape Cod in 1620, and the following years the survivors of the brutal winter had a feast with the Native Americans to give thanks to God. Here are the roots of our national holiday.
In the Old Testament, certain days were set apart for thanking God. In the New Testament the word eucharist, a word sometimes used for the service of Holy Communion, means “thanksgiving” and specifically thanksgiving to God. Do you realize how many times we “give thanks to God?” Look at our liturgy. At the end of a Scripture reading the elder or Pastor says, “This is the Word of the Lord.” We Lutherans know the automatic response, “Thanks be to God.” Let’s try another one, Pastor says, “Bless we the Lord.” Congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.” Thanking God is part of our religious fiber. Crazy right, but thanking God comes close to believing in Him!
Just because people may gather around a table and give thanks for something doesn’t make it a religious awakening. We should be thanking the Giver not the gift. Calling it “turkey Day” or “parade/football day” takes God out of the equation. Even though He might like a huge blown-up Woody Woodpecker or tossing the pigskin in Detroit. So, while a parade or football might keep people from worship, at least Santa Claus is at the end of the parade. It makes a good transition into a season named for Christ, where many don’t want to speak His name in public celebrations.
Thanksgiving Day is more than a First Article matter. We just don’t speak of God in generic terms. We address Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus. Look at our text, “All things were made through him – Jesus.” (v. 3.) In our Epistle lesson it says this about Jesus. “’I am the Alpha and the Omega ,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”
The Pilgrims left England because King James I was telling them how to conduct their worship services. Planning to sail to Virginia they ended up on the uninviting New England coast. Within a year, half the Pilgrims had died. If you have ever seen replicas of the Mayflower, one wonders how many times it might have crossed their minds that the religion of the king wasn’t all that bad.
Government has loosened the chains, but we were told how to worship during 2020. People tell the Pilgrims of the day to get it line with same sex marriage, cancel culture, wokeism and why would you ever worship that God?
Are Thanksgiving services necessary? Should we associate ourselves with the Pilgrims? Well, let’s take a look at our own story of the Missouri Synod. The Lutherans in Saxony and Prussia fled their countries to avoid religious persecution. Refugees from the Saxon State Church came in five ships, only four made it to the port of New Orleans – one was lost at sea. These Lutherans even prepared a document like the Mayflower Compact, which provided rules for their community in this adopted country. Things did not go well in Missouri. Some wanted to go back to Germany, just like some Pilgrims who returned to England. Most stayed and found other Lutherans in American who believed like they did. These are the forefathers and families who established the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
We give thanks to our Lord for bringing them to our shores. We are a Christ-believing, Bible-believing, Confession-believing people because of what they did to get to America to establish the LCMS. This is why we lift up our praise this day. We have the freedom to say that Christ has paid the price for our terrible deeds. We have the freedom to say that Christ has won our salvation as He overcame death and grave. We have the freedom to say that as baptized men and women we are the children of God. Thanks be to God!
Compare the Missouri Synod story to the Pilgrim story. Change the language from English to German, add a few more ships and push the calendar ahead two centuries, and one story starts to resemble the other. The characters have different names, lived at different times, and came from different places, but the plots are quite similar – they were fleeing religious persecution. Persecution belongs to the Christian experience. Read the Book of Acts. Why then would Lutherans in America not celebrate Thanksgiving Day services?
Amen.