Thanksgiving Eve
Jesu Juva
“What
Are We Saying When We Say ‘Thank You’?”
Text: Matthew
6:24-24
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God
our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
I would like to offer for your
consideration this evening what may sound like a very simple question: what do we mean when we say “thank you”? We say it a lot. Perhaps most of the time we say
thoughtlessly. But what are we really
saying?
And so think, for a moment, if you receive
a gift from someone – what will you be thanking them for? I suggest to you that it’s not just for the
material gift, but that there’s much more to it than that. You are thanking them also for thinking about
you. You are thanking them for spending
their precious time to select a gift.
You are thanking them for choosing to spend some of their money on you. You are thanking them for the joy and
happiness their gift brings to you. And
much, much more. There is a lot that
lies behind the gifts that we receive.
And so too with the gifts that we receive
from God. Tonight we gather to give
special thanks to God for all that He has given and done for us, but what are
we thanking Him for? What lies behind all of His gifts to us? . . .
To get you started thinking about that, I offer you this quote from
Martin Luther about the work of God in this world.
“For in the sight of God [we
Christians are] esteemed higher than the whole world, so that for [our] sake
God sustains the world and gives it all it has.
Hence if there were no Christians on earth, no town or land would have
peace, yes, in one single day the devil would ruin everything there is on
earth. The fact that there is still corn
growing in the fields, that men recover from their illnesses, that they have
food, peace and security, all this they owe to the Christians.” (Day by Day We Magnify Thee, p. 369)
So to put that in other words, if you
thank God for your house, what lies behind that gift? What works of God? What planning of God? Well, it would go something like this: God says, I want to provide Michael with a
good house. So I will make some trees
grow straight and tall and strong. I
will provide good workers to harvest those trees. I will make sure the truck driver gets the
wood to the mill. I will make sure the
mill workers cut the wood safely and properly so that it is good and
strong. I will make sure the wood gets
to where it needs to be for Michael’s house.
I will make sure the workers are alert and follow the plans. I will make sure they use the right tools,
and nothing is forgotten. I will have a
banker open a bank close by, so that Michael can get a mortgage. And there’s a whole host of other
considerations I didn’t even think of!
But you get the picture – what are we thanking God for?
Or another case: say you wish to thank God for your
health. What lies behind that gift? God says, I have my child Sarah that I want
to grow healthy and strong. I will see
to it that there are men to discover and make the medicines she needs when she
gets sick. I will have a doctor open a
medical office in
Or one more: we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “give us this day our daily bread.” And we thank God for it. But what lies behind that gift? God says, I will make sure there is good seed
for the farmer to plant. I will send
rain to water the seeds, and sun to make the plants grow. I will make sure there is a harvest, and
machines for the farmer to gather the crops.
I will have men invent trucks to haul and deliver the food. I will make sure there are grocery stores
close buy, so that my children can buy the food. I will use the stock people to make the food
available, the cashiers to check them out, and good strong bags to carry the
food in. I will have factories built to
process and make the food. And that is
only to provide our food! But daily
bread includes everything that we need for life – and God is giving and taking
care of it all!
You get the idea. And, as Luther said, in all these ways, God
is not only providing for us, His children, but also unbelievers benefit from
these things as well. But they do not
recognize or thank the giver of these gifts.
Now, some people will have a problem with
all that I’ve said here, thinking that God is really not all that involved in
these things of life! Rather, some think
that God made the world, wound it up like a clock, and is now simply sitting
back and watching it work. And so the
fact that we have all these things is not really God doing all of it as I have
described, but the working of the world as He made it. Just the way things go.
But if you think that, I would counter
with the words of the Holy Gospel that you heard this evening. Those words which spoke of God feeding the
birds of the air, and clothing the lilies of the field. And then there are other words of God which
tell us that He knows about every sparrow that falls to the ground, and that He
knows the exact number of hairs on your head.
No, God is not sitting back, watching!
He is active! And He is active
for you! Working through men and women,
in the vocations He has given them, to provide for you and me all and exactly
what we need. And if we realize that,
and trust that our Heavenly Father is working, and caring for even then
small details of our lives, then we will not worry or be anxious about these
things, or about tomorrow – for as we heard, “[our] Heavenly Father knows that
you need them all. But seek first the
And in seeking first His kingdom, we thank
Him also, and most especially, for His Son Jesus Christ, and all that He came
to do for us in His birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension. In giving us Baptism to make us His
children. In giving us His body and
blood in Holy Communion. In giving us
His Church, and Pastors, and His Word, and everything else that we need for
salvation. . . .
And as we have been doing, think what all
is involved in that! The Scriptures tell
us that even before the foundation of the world, God planned for our salvation,
and planned to send His Son to die for us.
He promised Adam and Eve that He would send a Saviour. He kept the lineage going that would produce
the human nature of His Son. He sent His
Son at just the right time. He provided
trees and wood for the cross that would kill His Son, but save us. . . .
And He appointed apostles to found and establish His New Testament
Church. He strengthened them as they
gave their lives for the faith. He had
churches built. He made sure the truth
of His Word was proclaimed through all generations. He enabled the printing press to be invented,
and Bibles to be printed. He had
seminaries established to train pastors.
He has faithful parents bring their children to be baptized and
confirmed; faithful Sunday School teachers to teach them. He gives devout husbands and wives to each
other. He gathers His children in places
and established through them congregations, and He brings others to hear His
Word. And on and on it goes.
And we say thank you. Thanks be to God . . . and we don’t even
realize what we’re saying! The magnitude
of all that God does for us is truly too much for us to comprehend! . . . And
yet that’s okay. The simple, and perhaps
ignorant, thanks that we give to God is precious to Him. Because it is offered in faith and
trust. Childlike faith and trust, that
even though we do not know and cannot comprehend all that God is and all that
He is doing, we know that He is working for us.
That He has chosen us, that He is providing for us, that He is taking
care of us, that He is forgiving us, and that He is saving us. There is nothing that we have that He did not
give; nothing that we are that He did not form; nothing that we do that He is
not working in and through us. He is all
in all. He is our Father and Saviour.
And so as we gather this night to give
thanks to God, it is with great humility.
His goodness is so great, His gifts so staggering in their volume, His
love so enormous. And compared to all of
that, our thanks seem so insignificant, so “not enough.” . . .
And yet it is all that He desires.
. . . Thank you Father, that you
are our Father. Thank you Jesus, that
you are our Saviour. And thank you
Spirit, that you have called us and adopted us to be children of God. Thank you for all that includes, or as we
pray when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, as Luther explained: “God
certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil
people, but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to realize this and
to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+)
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God which passes all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Amen.