On Thanksgiving

I never went to church until I was in middle school.  I became a Christian a few years later between my sophomore and junior year of high school.

This has an interesting impact on how I see holidays.  The obvious ones are Christmas and Easter.  Both holidays were both pretty secular when I was a kid..  We had a nativity scene, but I didn't really know what that story was about.  I was told Christmas was when we celebrated Jesus' birth, but I didn't know who Jesus was.  In the spring I could never keep straight Easter from Good Friday from Palm Sunday.  Oh well, the bunny still gave me candy.

Of course those holidays made more sense when I became a Christian.  What about Thanksgiving?  Non-Christian Tony ate turkey, had a few days off of school, and helped his mom decorate for Christmas.  Christian Tony...ate turkey, had a few days off of school, and helped his mom decorate for Christmas.

I think we sometimes look back on American things as if they were either created entirely apart from religion or entirely based on religion.  For example, was the US ever a Christian nation?  Yes and no.  Government-wise, no.  And we need to admit that as Christians.  We are not a theocracy.  However, culturally, of course we were a Christian nation!  We were a nation largely settled by people seeking freedom of religious persecution.  We seem to get in most of our disagreements as to when and if religion and government touch.  You can't read our founding documents or personal correspondence by many of our founding fathers without being hit in the face with influence that God had on their lives.  Government was never to take over religion, and religion was never to take over government, but those are very different things than religion influencing government.

Anyway, I think that's how it is with Thanksgiving.  It's an American holiday.  It has nothing to do with Christianity, right?  Well, no, not necessarily.

William Bradford was the governor in Plymouth for 30 years.  He was the second governor there, following the first who died during his first year in charge.  Governor Bradford made the following proclamation three years after the Pilgrim's arrived in Plymouth:

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience. 

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at yet meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the daytime, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to yet Almighty God for all His blessings.

I'm not sure how you can read such a proclamation and refuse to admit the influence Christianity had on the creation of Thanksgiving.  President Abraham Lincoln gave his own proclamation on Thanksgiving Day 1864.  The Civil War was waning.  Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and Shenandoah Valley are all Union victories at this point, though the war would continue for another four months.  Lincoln begins this proclamation by recognizing all God had done for the great nation, and then announces:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.  And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on the occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

Again, here is one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country announcing very clearly that this is a day for giving thanks to God and humbling ourselves in prayer.

Now, I don't mean to say that one cannot celebrate Thanksgiving if he or she isn't a Christian.  This day of thanksgiving isn't marked in the Bible or any other religious book.  But like much of the founding of our country, separating the Christians roots ignores reality and whitewashes history.

So what should Thanksgiving be about?  It should probably be a time when we consider things that matter and things that don't.  Protecting my lane on my commute to work or home doesn't matter.  Yet I do it every. single. day.  Buying every new album or book that I want doesn't matter.  Still, look at my Amazon account.

I have a wife, a daughter, family, and friends.  Those people matter.  The Gospel message matters.  The absolute most important thing I can do is live a life that 1) reflects a heart change instituted by God, and 2) share that Gospel message with others.

God has taught me so much about grace these past few years.  He's taught me that "God and country" is a terrible motto.  He's taught me that life on earth is both nothing and a gift.  It's nothing in that there is something better possible, and a gift in that we have duties and responsibilities while we are here.  He's taught me that there are a million more important things to do over the weekend than making sure I watch both the Penn State game and the Eagles game.

I'm thankful for a deeper understanding of God and scripture this year than I had last year.  And I'm thankful for being confident that I will be able to say the same next year.

I'm sure that you have many things to be thankful for, regardless of whether you're a Christian or not.  Granted, I'm not sure who is being thanked if not God.  I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving no matter what you believe.  Please know that this holiday does reflect a Christian worldview of gratefulness for supplication and provision, even if you don't adhere to that yourself.  If nothing else, tell people you love them.