Thanksgiving Eve - 11-25-09

The Church Season of Trinity
Thanksgiving Eve, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (November 25, 2009)

“Thanksgiving”

Readings:
Psalm 67
Deuteronomy 8:1-10
Philippians 4:6-20
Luke 17:11-19

Sermon Form Deductive

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Old Testament Lesson from the 8th chapter of Deuteronomy, especially the following verse:

Deuteronomy 8:1-10 (ESV)

[God said]10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Thanksgiving is steeped with tradition, it surrounds us, and engulfs us. It is a time to gather together with family and friends. A time to tell the old family stories that have been told a thousand times before. We remember the Thanksgiving days from a few years ago and we remember those days we experienced in our youth. Some Thanksgivings we recall were better than others, in fact some we remember just because of the things that didn’t quite go right. Some past Thanksgiving gatherings we remember and cherish because several of those people with whom we broke bread are no longer sitting at the table with us. Thanksgiving is indeed a time for gathering together family and friends, old acquaintances and new, old memories join with new memories. Tradition is somehow upheld, even though reality tells us tradition slowly changes.

It’s true. For as a youth, your tradition was to sit at the kids table. That small little gathering off to the side of the main event. But sometime in your youth, your gaze slipped from the little friends, your little glasses, and your little plates, over toward the big people and the big table. And so as is the tradition, somewhere in time, the big table adds another chair. In turn, the little table becomes the despised place, and quite frankly being sent to the little table is a total disaster should a long lost adult show up and push you back down. But with little thanks and very little thought of your own, one day your place is finally secured. Somewhere, somehow, the spot at the table of honor became a forgone conclusion.

But as the change in tradition would have it, only a few years later, some found themselves at a new table, where there is only one familiar face. But from that face you are comforted because you came with someone who looks at you with loving eyes. Yet there are traditions in this new place which don’t seem quite right. Not the way you’ve known, and not the way you would do it. But still that stolen glance from the one who brought you to the dance, makes all the sense of old tradition to slip to near nonsense.

And when that glance and stolen look from the one whom you love becomes greater than any tradition could ever be... Then, right then, you find that you have two meals to attend, and now two traditions that your memory must amend. Now the next challenge is which meal with which family comes first in the order of the Thanksgiving day. Yet just as soon as the schedule is addressed, then somehow off to the side, your glance goes astray, and at the little table, you see new faces begin to join, the family has somehow grown. Then you say, My God, my God how the time has passed away.

Then comes that day when your glance is turned again. Your stare is now at the clock or out the window to see when the arrival will begin. But, the table is prepared, it’ll be okay. Yet you still wonder will you host it as good as it has always been in the past? The tradition has come full circle. The old tradition is now new. The guests are seated and with thanksgiving hands are joined, the meal is blessed, and so it continues, just as it has begun, just as it was changed, just as it has always been.

And somewhere along life’s journey, whether after the meal you sit in the chair, or whether you gather the remnants of that meal gone by...Maybe, just maybe you’ll see the unseen the things that we really should see. One of course, the best unknown for supporting role, the table underneath the bread and over which the prayers are said.

But there is one who is yet greater even still. I pray that from your gaze upon that table you’ll close your eyes, and turn your thoughts to a table of fellowship with food from paradise. For it is Jesus Christ Himself that brought you His love into fellowship with Himself. He, not your table, is the one who blessed you as His child. Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word who gazed upon you with His love. It is He whose Word which was combined with water to welcome you into His family. And that forever family revealed, given, and shed for you was confirmed in the Name of the Triune of God, the Father Son, and Holy Spirit. Christ’s Name upon your heart and upon your forehead, moved you up and out of death and sin to the greater table of fellowship which has no end.

And that love of Christ is just for you, you are His blessed bride for all time. For Jesus has always gazed upon you even through pain and love. In the water and the Word Jesus gives you a new tradition of thanksgiving with His body and His blood. And even more He gives you to drink, “to the thirsty He will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.”(Rev 21:6) A new fellowship at Christ’s table He now gathers you and all the saints of heaven.

There Jesus Christ will feed you for today, and for all your tomorrows. Yet even greater still with Christ’s body and blood you’ll receive an eternal supply of your heavenly bread. As you approach His table in repentant bow, Jesus erases, He forgives all your errors of the here and now. Your sins are forgiven, your sins are forgotten, now all are joined by not only hands and hearts, but as all redeemed in the body of Christ. Christ is He who is beyond all time, yet for His love of you He steps into time. And when gathered at that heavenly feast, you’ll not have even the inkling to say, my God, my God how the time has passed away.

For it was not you, but it was Jesus Christ who said My God, My God. And it is our sin marred gaze that would seem to make it Him whose time had passed away. For only days before His death, Jesus gave His Holy food, upon a table made of wood. But that table was set on end. And wood became the cross, from which God Incarnate gazed at you the world’s most lost. Yet from the cross the thanksgiving feast became complete, it is finished, and it was Jesus who was prepared. In three days time Jesus rose again and so that same meal of Him is now among us shared. A new tradition, yet an unchanging heavenly place, the guests are not seated, but rather kneel with bowed face.

This eternal Thanksgiving meal which Jesus blessed, it is for you, you no longer serve the Thanksgiving meal, the meal now serves you. By Jesus Christ you are redeemed and you have been blessed to move up to that greater table of the eternal Thanksgiving fest. Jesus Christ bids you to enjoy, remember, the meal tomorrow with good gifts of food, family, and friends. Jesus bids you to know that you will enjoy a greater feast that never ends. Then, rejoicing we'll finally pray, My God, My God how wonderful it is that your time will never pass away. So we praise and give thanksgiving not only for the meal just for tomorrow, we sing together, “All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given, The Son and Him who reigns with them in highest heaven, The one eternal God, whom earth and heav’n adore; for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.”(LSB#895) Amen.

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