Have you noticed how Thanksgiving seems to be on a slow demise in our society? I started noticing this in the last few years, but it didn’t really hit me until this year when I noticed the advertisers and the decorations jumping directly from Halloween to Christmas. Now, I am not saying there is anything wrong with getting people to focus on Christmas early, but I am concerned that there as Christians we will be swept up in the frenzy of the holidays, without taking the time to adequately celebrate this uniquely God-glorifying holiday.
Thanksgiving Day traces its roots back to 1621, when a group of Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts celebrated a bountiful harvest with several days of feasting and games. The Pilgrims recognized that God had blessed them in a unique way that year so they took the time to recognize God’s provision and express their gratitude to Him.
President George Washington officially proclaimed Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1789. He said it would be recognized “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.” He called on his fellow countrymen to “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions.”
In the midst of the Civil War in 1863, president Abraham Lincoln set the final Thursday in November as day of thanksgiving. He said, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”
Recently, my appreciation for the holiday increased because I came across a book by Eric Metaxas, which describes the back story to one of the guests who attended the original Thanksgiving celebration. The book is titled, “Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving: A Harvest Story from Colonial America of How One Native American’s Friendship Saved the Pilgrims.” The book describes Tisquantum’s remarkable story of how he was kidnapped from his Patuxet tribe, learned Spanish and English, and then was able to return to his original village in Massachusetts. It just so happened that a group of Pilgrims had arrived at the same area of New England. They were in desperate need of someone with local expertise on hunting and farming. Tisquantum was already fluent in English and so when he walked into the Pilgrim’s camp he was able to help them learn how to thrive in that community. He was one of the reasons why the Pilgrim’s were able to celebrate that first Thanksgiving.
As I read the story, it reminded me of the account of Joseph’s trials and success in Egypt. Joseph experienced immense difficulty. He was also sold into slavery, but God was able to use it for good. Joseph put it so eloquently when he spoke to his brothers. He said, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20) The story of Tisquantum is a much more recent example of God sovereignly directing a remarkable outcome from what would otherwise be a tragic situation.
I would encourage you to reflect on the goodness of God this Thanksgiving season. As Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
