"Give thanks for the gifts that will not burn" Thanksgiving Eve 2025

26. December 2025
Wednesday of Trinity 27
Luke 10:3b-11

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

The Church Year is almost over. The lessons tonight turn our eyes toward the end, the last harvest, the final judgment. At the same time, our nation sets aside tomorrow as a day to “give thanks,” usually for full barns, full accounts, and full tables. So it’s fitting that the Lord puts before us these words: “Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves… Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house’… Say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10).

Jesus sends His seventy (or seventy-two) ahead of Him. They are not sent into a religious theme park or a neutral world. “Lambs in the midst of wolves” is not a metaphor for “occasionally unpopular.” It means weak among the strong, prey among predators, confessors surrounded by liars. That’s the picture of the Church at the end of the age. It was true of Israel surrounded by the nations. It was true of the apostles. It is true of Christ’s Church now.

This is not how we like to think of ourselves. We want to be admired, respected, and secure. We want the Church to appear strong, influential, and effective. But the Lord is blunt. You are not a voting bloc. You are not a special interest group. You are lambs. The devouring wolves are false teaching, unbelief, the love of money, the worship of self, and the lust for power. Often, if we’re honest, the wolves are not only “out there,” but also in our own hearts and sometimes even in the Church’s pulpits and councils.

So the end-time warning is this: do not be surprised when being a Christian looks like weakness or poverty. Do not be shocked when the world mocks you, when the devil tempts you, when your own flesh betrays you. The Lord told you: “Lambs in the midst of wolves.” He Himself is the first Lamb in the midst of wolves—the Lamb of God surrounded by priests and soldiers and crowds who hate Him—and you are baptized into Him. That’s what you signed up for.

“Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals,” Jesus says. He strips His sent ones of what we consider basic security. No thick wallet, no backup bag, no comfortable reserve. Why? Because He wants them to live by His promise, not by their calculations. The temptation of wealth and abundance leads to greed and miserliness, even among Christians. He wants the Church to learn again that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”

This is where His Word rubs hard against our national “thanksgiving.” The way we celebrate usually has more to do with idolatry than with faith. We boast in our barns, our yields, our salaries, our pensions, our full refrigerators. We call it “giving thanks,” but often we are really congratulating ourselves for having lots of stuff. We are far more anxious about losing our lifestyle than losing Christ’s Word.

The Lord isn’t impressed. He tells His preachers and His Church to travel light. He tells them to expect their daily bread from His hand, not from their hoarding. He tells them that the harvest is His, the laborers are His, and the support is His doing. He expects no different from all His people. When He takes away our illusions of self-sufficiency, that isn’t cruelty; it’s mercy. He is tearing our fingers off our idols so He can put something real in our hands.

Whatever house they enter, the first word is: “Peace be to this house.” Not a vague wish, not a social nicety, but a performative word. The same Lord who spoke, “Let there be light,” now speaks, “Peace.” This is the peace promised by the prophets, the peace of sins forgiven, wrath turned away, guilt covered. This is the peace the angels sang at Bethlehem and the risen Christ spoke in the locked room: “Peace be with you.” And His peace is a treasure no one can take from you.

So understand what happens when the pastor stands before you and says, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.” He is not offering you a religious mood. He is putting Christ’s peace on your house, on your baptism, on your conscience. When the pastor proclaims Christ crucified, when He preaches the kingdom, when he places Christ’s body and blood into your mouth, the same thing is happening: “Peace be to this house.” Jesus Himself is visiting you.

If there is “a son of peace” here—someone given faith by the Spirit—that peace rests on him. If not, it returns to the preacher. The Word is never wasted. But there are only two outcomes: either the peace is received in faith, or it is rejected in unbelief. In both cases, the kingdom has come near. No one can say, “You never visited us, Lord,” when the last day comes.

And when a town will not receive the preaching? What happens to those who refuse the Lord’s gifts with ungrateful hearts? Jesus tells them to wipe even the dust from their feet as a testimony against it. That is a terrifying image for the end of the church year. The very dust of a place rises up as a witness: “Christ came here. His Word sounded here. His peace was spoken here. His Supper was given here. His servants were sent here. And they did not want Him.”

This text will not let us pretend. We have had Christ’s Word. We have had His font and altar. We have had faithful preaching, catechesis, and absolution. The kingdom has come near to this house, again and again. If we have treated those things lightly, if we’ve skipped them for trifles, if we’ve refused to forgive while receiving forgiveness, if we’ve despised these gifts without thanks, if we’ve run after wolves and despised the Lamb—that is not a small thing. The dust remembers.

That is why the Lord gives you these words before the last day dawns: not to rub your nose in your failures, but to bring you to repentance. The right response to this text is not to argue with it, not to make excuses, but to say, “Lord, have mercy. I have not feared You as I should. I have not loved Your Word as I should. I have trusted money, wealth, and property more than You, comfort more than Your cross. Forgive me.”

And He does. The Lamb who sends you out as lambs among wolves is Himself devoured by the wolves in your place. He sets His face toward Jerusalem, not to escape suffering, but to embrace it. He goes to the cross bearing your idolatry, your ingratitude, your love of comfort, your fear of the wolves. He lets the Father’s judgment fall on Him so that when the last day comes, there is no judgment left for you.

That is why, later in this chapter, when the seventy return rejoicing that the demons submitted to them, Jesus redirects their joy: “Do not rejoice in this… but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Your joy, your thanksgiving, your confidence on the last day are not in what you have done, not in what you have survived, not in what you have piled up, but in this: your name is engraved in the wounds of Christ, written in the Book of Life, dwelling in the heart of the Father.

Now you can talk about Thanksgiving in a Christian way. You give thanks for daily bread—food, drink, house, home, family, work, land—because your Father has provided it. You receive what is set before you with prayer, not as a god to cling to, but as a gift to use and enjoy. You feed the hungry, support the preaching, care for the weak, because you know you are not your own; you were bought with a price.

Most of all, you give thanks for the gifts that will not burn: Baptism that has buried you with Christ and raised you with Him. Absolution that silences the accusations of your conscience and of the devil. Preaching that keeps dragging you out of yourself and back to Christ. The Supper that feeds you with the very body and blood once offered for you on the cross, now given into your mouth for the forgiveness of sins. That is the real Thanksgiving feast; that is the foretaste of the feast to come.

So as another church year comes to its close, as the fields lie bare and the days grow short, as you gather at your tables and look back over the year, do not be deceived by appearances. The wolves are still out there. Your life is still fragile. The Church still looks small and weak. But the kingdom of God has come near to you. Christ has spoken His peace to this house. He has written your name in heaven. And nothing can snatch you out of His hand. Thank God!

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin