Jesu Juva
“Lord, Help Us Realize
This”
Text: Deuteronomy 8:1-10;
1 Timothy 2:1-4; Luke 17:11-19
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer asks: Give
us this day our daily bread.
The catechims then asks
us: What does this mean?
God certainly gives daily bread to everyone
without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that
God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with
thanksgiving.
To realize this. To
open our eyes and ears and hearts to all that our Lord is doing. That He
is giving us and all people more gifts than we can even imagine. On a good day,
like Thanksgiving Day, we might remember to give thanks for all the gifts and
blessings we realize and can think of, but in truth, that doesn’t even begin to
scratch the surface. There is so much more God is doing that we don’t even
realize. Like an iceberg in the ocean, with only the topmost five or ten
percent visible, when you realize a gift from God, you can be sure there’s
ninety percent more behind it than you even know.
So in the Lord’s Prayer we pray: Lord, help us to
realize this. Open our eyes and ears and hearts to believe.
And to help us with this, Luther then asks: What
is meant by daily bread? What are some of these gifts for which to give
thanks that God is giving to all people? And though the list here is long, it
again doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Daily bread includes
everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food,
drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, good, a devout
husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers,
good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation,
good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
I suppose when you don’t have those things, or
when you had them but lose them, you realize what gifts they are and how much
you need them. Help us realize this too, dear Father in heaven. All Your gifts, so richly and abundantly given.
But still there’s more. Moses also told the
people of Israel: Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his
son, the Lord your God disciplines you. This too is a gift from God,
His discipline. When we try to “count our blessings,” we usually try to think
of those things we think are good - but God’s gifts are not limited to what we
enjoy. He sends good in ways that are sometimes tough and difficult, that
involve struggle and perhaps even suffering. Lord, help us to realize this too,
and receive this daily bread with thanksgiving as well.
And Moses then gives us some insight concerning
this, why God gives gifts in this way too, saying that it is that he
might make you know that may does not live by bread alone, but man lives by
every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. It is so easy to
focus on the gift and not the Giver. Look at the nine lepers who did just that
as an example. But all the gifts of this world and life will one day go away -
all those things Luther listed in the catechism. But this one will not: the
word of the Lord. This is the gift not only behind every gift and that speaks
every gift, but the gift that is superior to every gift. The word of the Lord, and that Word made flesh.
And this is the gift that has not only been given
to you, but just as with all His other gifts, God desires to give to all
people, for He desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. The truth that just as the people of Israel
were on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land, so are we. And that as good as the
Promised Land might be for them, and as good as the gifts we might receive here
are, there is more. The gift of life with our Father in
heaven, through the death and resurrection of the Son, by the working of the
Holy Spirit.
And to give this gift, how much is our God
doing! Beginning with the promise made to Adam and Eve, down through time to
the Incarnation, and now to the gifts given here, to you. These
gifts that give THE gift. The gift of the Son, His
Word, His forgiveness, and His life. And these gifts
not just given once, but continually, to bless you and keep you, to feed you
and sustain you in this life, for if it were up to us, if we were on our own,
how quickly and easily we would lose it all. Lord, help us realize this,
too. And give thanks.
So we’ve gathered here this night to do so. Not only this night, but especially this night.
To give thanks not only for what we know God has given us, but for what we do
not know. To give thanks not only for what we think is good and enjoy, but
those things through which God is working a good of which we are not aware. And
to give thanks not only for ourselves, but for those who are not here tonight,
and for those who do not even believe. For all God’s gifts deserve thanks and
praise, and it is good to give thanks to the Lord (Ps 92:1). Good for us.
That, as Luther once said, we may realize and
believe that our God is an eternal fountain that gushes forth abundantly nothing
but what is good (Large
Catechism, First Commandment). And in return, we may gush forth abundantly a constant
thanksgiving for all these gifts. Thanksgiving everyday, in word and deed.
In the Name of the
Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.