THANKSGIVING SERVICE:
Wednesday November 21, 2001
Joint Service with Triumphant Love Lutheran Church
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"And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless
the Lord your God for the good land He has given.....
And.....
You shall remember the Lord your God,
for it is He who gives you power to get wealth....."
Deuteronomy 8: 10 & 18
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The essence of Thanksgiving is remembering -
It is remembering and recalling -
It is recalling to mind the many blessings,
the many gifts and the Redemption for us
wrought about through Jesus God's Son.
What we do this evening,
is in obedience to Jesus' command to
"Do this in Remembrance of me."
But just maybe
there is even one more prior aspect of
Remembering that makes possible Thanksgiving,
And that is
The Humble Heart.
It is the humble heart that realizes and
acknowledges that all that we have,
all that we are and
all those things by which we are blessed
Come from God, the giver of all good and perfect gifts,
Whose love and care for us is not seasonal or sporadic,
But He is One,
As St. James says in his Epistle:
"With whom there is no shadow of change,"
Whose love and whose providence
is the same,
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.
I love that saying that a man of faith
proclaimed when he said:
"All of know of tomorrow,
is that Providence will rise before the sun."
The Humble Heart does not take itself too seriously,
But
Remembering and giving Thanks
is giving God the Glory,
It is a sincere expression of the heart
By which we show and by which
we tell God of our Love for Him.
Our Thanksgiving to God should never be a well kept secret.
Jesuit Priest & Author, Father John Powell tells
the story of when his mother called him to
the hospital as his father was dying.
After his father had died,
father Powell's mother blurted out:
"Oh how that man loved you -
Oh if you only knew how much that man loved you !"
Father Powell still in the throes of grief
With tears in his eyes replied:
"You mean he really loved me -
You mean he really loved me.
Well if he loved me
It surely was a well kept secret,
For I can never remember him ever saying
a word that he cared or that he loved me."
Ingratitude, unexpressed appreciation is
Painful in so many ways.
If ingratitude is painful to us -
Then just think how it grieves the heart of God
when we take for granted all that He continually
and so bountifully bestows upon us.
Shakespeare put these words
into the mouth of sorrowing King Lear:
King Lear knew & experienced the pain of ingratitude
when he said:
"Sharper than a serpent's tooth,
is a thankless child."
In the Play "Fiddler On The Roof -
There is an exchange between
Tevya & Golda
Tevya asks Golda:
"Golda - do you love me"
Golda replies:
"What kind of question is that ?
I cook your food, I wash your clothes and
I share your bed.
What's wrong with you?
Tevya then says:
"Yes - but Golda do you love me?
Golda replies:
"What do you mean?
I give you children, I darn your clothes,
We have lived stayed for many years."
How can you ask such a question?
Then Tevya says:
"Well then Golda,
I guess you do love me after all."
Why is it so hard to say I love you ?
Why is it so hard to say Thank You?
Why do we let our feelings of gratitude go un-expressed
and why do we keep such feelings to ourselves ?
The Story of The Troop Ship Coming Home.
True Thanksgiving from deep within the heart
is something like this:
A Troop Ship coming home from World War II
in the South Pacific was packed with
Soldiers returning home from battle.
Some had been wounded -
but most all of them had had narrow escapes from death.
The Captain of the Ship asked the Chaplain
if he thought it might be meaningful to have
A service of Thanksgiving
for deliverance from the terror of war.
The Chaplain agreed but he thought to himself -
people will be preoccupied and
most will not be interested in such a service.
However he was very much wrong.
Instead the gymnaision where the service
was held was jam packed -
with people hanging from the rafters.
The Chaplain was overwhelmed by
the exhuberance and the joy
that permeated the Thanksgiving Service.
When the people prayed -
their prayers were robust,
When they all sang, their voices were thunderous.
The Chaplain with tears in his eyes
noted that
the Soldiers truly put their hearts and their souls into
The Worship Service,
Truly expressing their thankfulness
for their safety and their deliverance.
The Spirit of the Service was one of joy and gratitude.
Likewise for each of us -
We too have been delivered -
We have been delivered from the Power of Darkness
And as the Soldiers, we too have been saved from death,
Eternal Death.
So -
Would too -
that our Thanksgiving would be as
joyful and as deep and as profound,
Would too that our Thanksgiving Service be
as glorious and as spirited -
For we too must realize the immense blessing
by which our Lord's Death has redeemed us.
But above all this Thanksgiving Eve,
We make the commitment
To give thanks,
"Not only with our lips,
But in our Lives."
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Text:
"And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless
The Lord your God for the good land He has given you
And.....
You shall remember the Lord your God,
for it is He who give you power to get wealth....."
A M E N !
jdp+