Hosting Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. The American fall-harvest festival. Back in the pilgrim days I assume the main purpose was to give thanks to the fact you might survive the harsh winter months. Today, of course, it's developed into a day to remember what you're thankful for.

I'm thankful that Katie and I got to host Thanksgiving for the first time (and probably last in a while). For those of you who don't know, members at my church are letting Katie and I rent out their old house that they were trying to sell. So we got room! And despite the chaos of taking care of someone's dog during this, buying and preparing food, entertaining four young Nephews, etc. I'd say it was a success. Family and food was prevalent.

The following might be considered too "preachy" and/or "churchy" in a bad way. If so, I'm sorry you've had bad experiences or something like that. I haven't had those bad ones, so to me it's awesome. Now, there are lots of things I could list to be thankful for (for some reason that one dinner scene in The Punisher comes to mind...), but above all I want to thank Jesus after reading the text of our Thanksgiving Eve Service, Luke 17:11-19. I want to thank Jesus for his pity, and for my faith. Jesus' pity on me and the faith/trust his Spirit has worked in me through his Word (the Bible) and Sacraments (I'm talking about Baptism and the Lord's Supper) had nothing to do with any good work I did or good decision I could've made, but everything to do with his grace, that is, his undeserved love in choosing me. Like the leprous Samaritan, I was born in this world as foreign to God and infected with the leprosy of sin. Every day by nature I waste away due to the wages of sin, which is death. But Jesus had pity on me by living the life God demands and dying the death my sins deserve IN MY PLACE, and rising to the life I, too, will live. Jesus' pity on me is what motivates me in turn to reach out to others and be simply a Christian, that is, someone who bears the image of Christ IN this world and FOR this world.

Paul states it so succinctly when talking to fellow sinner-saints in Ephesus about what it means to be made alive in Christ when he says, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

And my faith has kept me from screwing up my life on many an occasion. It has held my family together and it seals my marriage. My faith, given to me by Jesus, is what enables me to understand the true depth of Jesus' mercy (thinking primarily of the Hebrew חסד), of being the "snake-crusher" promised to Adam, the "seed" promised to Abraham, the "fulfillment" of the Torah given to Moses, the wisdom or word made flesh who tented among us, the true Israel for the world that no one could ever be, the Messiah, Savior, Son of Man, Redeemer, the perfect prophet, priest, and king. And through my faith I receive those benefits now, and will receive the benefits of a "not guilty" verdict on the Last Day (or as Old German Lutherans called it, the "youngest day" [der jünste Tag] looking forward to the beginning of a new heavens and new earth) when the Son of Man comes again in glory to take me to rule with him. So thank you Jesus.

One more thing, I had someone at church ask me an interesting question after our Thanksgiving Eve Service. "Does thanks have to have an object?" In other words, can I "be thankful" without anyone or anything in particular to be thankful to? He was thinking of how the Greek word "πιστις" normally translated 'trust" or "faith," inherently has an object, that is, something or someone that you trust/have faith in/regard as dependable. My knee-jerk answer was yes. What do you think?