"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything, give thanks!" Thanksgiving Eve 2024

27. November 2024

Thanksgiving Eve

Isaiah 51:4–6; Psalm 93; Jude 20–25; Mark 13:24–37

In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

Every Divine Service is a service of thanksgiving. In the context of receiving Christ’s Word and Sacrament, our liturgy has us say: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give Him thanks and praise.” For this reason, some call the Lord’s Supper the Eucharist, an anglicized version of the Greek εὐχαριστία, the Thanksgiving.

While thanks belong to every day, it is appropriate for us to set apart this day for special thanks to God. Careful attention is paid to the temporal, timely, temporary gifts that God gives: family, food, friendship, country, and such. All this belongs to “daily bread.” Everyone receives daily bread, even all “evil” people. But Christians uniquely believe and confess thanks to the one true God who gives these gifts.

These temporal gifts are necessary for the body and life. We depend on them, and that’s why we pray day by day for our daily bread. We thank God for giving us life by our parents, providing for our nurture and upbringing. We thank God for a peaceful country where we can live without the constant fear of some. We thank God for the gift of spouse, marriage, and family, continuing the generations.

We thank God for causing the rain to fall, the sun to shine, the seed to sprout, the trees to be fruitful, and the animals to continue—all that we may eat and live. Our thanks are directed to those who lovingly delivered these gifts to us and the One in whom all things live, breathe, and have their being. Thanksgiving.

Perhaps you noticed that our readings tonight had a different focus, which will cause us to be thankful for more than temporal gifts. These are good, to be sure. But we ought not to forget the more fantastic gifts that are eternal. These are the gifts of Christ. By His suffering and death, He forgives you all your sins—yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

And because all sins are forgiven in Jesus, their penalty is also absolved in Him. In Jesus, you need not fear death or hell because He has broken their bonds and set you free from their captivity. And because sins are forgiven and death defeated, you also have the promise of resurrection and life eternal with Christ and all His saints. For all these eternal gifts, we give thanks to God now and forever, world without end, Amen. Thanksgiving.

The only way we can enjoy the temporal gifts is to receive them because of the eternal gifts. As the Spirit inspired St. James, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” And who came down from the Father but Jesus? Without Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross of Calvary, you would not know that God loves you and cares for you. Without Jesus, you would not know God to be your Father and believe you are His beloved children. Without Jesus, you’d live a life seesawing between faith and doubt, contentment and hunger, despair and hope.

But in Jesus, you know that whatever happens, God is working all for your good and for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Some use the truth that God works good, even out evil, as a license to sin. This doesn’t mean He accepts your ignorant ideas, sinful behavior, and destructive words. He means to use them to return you in repentance to the way that you should go, the way that provides for you now and keeps you until the last day, and He comes again. Jesus calls this bearing your cross. He says this is the yoke around your neck and the burden of this temporary world. He means to use suffering, pain, loss, despair, tragedy, and illness, to humble you so absolutely that all that is left for you to trust that God the Father, Son, and Spirit will work it out. Every enemy of faith is under Jesus’s feet, conquered and powerless to tear you from Him.

One of the most astounding confessions of the Apostles is in St. Paul’s letter to Thessalonica. The Spirit inspired, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Th 5:16–18). In everything? But not for the cancer, or bankruptcy, or war, or infidelity, or stillborn, right? No, for those, too. We don’t have to like them and can even lament (read: complain) to God about them.

We turn in prayer to God, saying, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” This is not trite dismissal of real pain and misery. It is giving it over in faith to the only one who can do anything about it. As St. Paul taught us, “I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Co 12:8–10).

We Christians do not have a temporal but an eternal perspective. This life along with everything need for it is a good gift from God. He gives it to us in love and for love. He provides all and delivers us from all evil until the final day. We may be given to suffer now, but this God uses to turn us back to Him for faith and life. The Scriptures call the worst we experience “a light, momentary affliction.” No doubt, it's incredibly difficult now, and sometimes I know it feels too heavy to bear. But even the worst that we can suffer in this life cannot compare to the glory to be revealed in us. Thanksgiving.

And that’s why Jesus’ description of the last day, as terrifying as it is to the sinner, is a source of expectant hope for you, the elect children of God. Because all the temporal, timely, temporary gifts that God gives, as good as they are, will finally meet their end and be consumed. The very heavens and earth will pass away, rolled up like a scroll, eaten up by the flames. And what persists? What can never pass away? The Word of God, My words, Jesus says.

And what will His words do? They will do what they’re even doing now—making all things new. Restoring, refreshing, and giving new life. Behold the old is gone, the new has come. For you, the baptized, have already gotten your death over with. You’ve already been judged in Jesus’s suffering and death. He has you safe and sound here in His holy ark. Even if the world rages and sin torments you and it seems everything is going to hell, you know and believe that Christ has already conquered in the fight.

And when your last hour comes, you have His promise: “[You] will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together [you] His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven (Mk 13:26–27). Thanks be to God. Happy Thanksgiving today and always.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guards your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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