Thanksgiving Eve
Deut.
8:1-10
11/27/13
Not every meal at the Surburg house
is met with thanksgiving. There are
several younger individuals – I won’t name names – who have strong feelings
about what they don’t like. And sometimes, they are not hesitant to make their
feelings known.
Now admittedly, none of us likes
everything equally well. There are some
things we really enjoy. There are some
things that we think are just ok. And then there are some things that we really
don’t like all that much. However, part
of growing up is realizing that it’s not polite to express dislike in a
straightforward way. There is a time, a place and way to share what you really
think. However, right before dinner when
the menu is announced is not the time, and this is not the way to do it:
Ehhhh!!! I don’t like that!
During the wandering in the wilderness,
God provided manna to Israel. Each
morning, when the dew disappeared, there was a fine, flake like substance on
the ground – fine as frost. Moses told the people that this was the bread from
heaven and they were to gather up as much as they needed for that day. The people had never seen anything like
it. In fact the name “manna” could be
translated as “whatchmacallit.”
Now this was not the reaction of
people who were about to sit down to a meal they could not wait to eat. But if you are hungry and facing the
possibility of starvation, I suppose you eat what is available. And to be honest, it doesn’t sound all that
bad. We are told that the taste of manna
was like wafers made with honey. God provided this manna all during the forty
years in the wilderness.
The people ate the manna; and ate
the manna; and ate the manna. And one
day they said, “Ehhhh!!! I don’t like that!”
They said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in
Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and
the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but
this manna to look at.” They did not
exactly react with thanksgiving for the life sustaining food that God was
providing.
In our Old Testament lesson for
Thanksgiving, we learn there was a reason that God did this. Moses says, “And you shall remember the whole
way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness,
that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether
you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger
and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that
he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by
every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
Moses said that God was humbling the
people of Israel. He was humbling them
in order to test them – to see what was in their hearts. He was testing them to see whether they would
be faithful to Yahweh by keeping his commandments. In fact, God was using the manna not just in
order to provide for their physical needs.
He was using it to teach them that man does not live by bread alone, but
instead by every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh. He was using it to teach them that life was
lived by relying on God – by listening to him, and by believing and trusting
his word.
God had done this with food. He had also done it with clothing and their
physical well being. We hear in our text, “Your clothing did not wear out on
you and your foot did not swell these forty years.” God had seen to it that their clothing lasted
and that their feet did not cause them problems. Of course, this is also to say that they
didn’t get much in the way of new clothing and that they were journeying on
foot during those forty years. As Moses says, “Know then in your heart that, as
a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.”
Moses reminds the people about this
because they are about to enter into the promised land. Their situation is about to change
dramatically. God had provided for them
in ways that humbled and disciplined Israel.
He had sought to teach them that man does not live by bread alone, but
by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Yet very soon all of that was going
to change. Moses says, “For the LORD
your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat
and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and
honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will
lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig
copper.”
They were entering into a land of
plenty. That was great. But there was also a danger that awaited them. Just before describing that land, Moses says
in our text, “So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by
walking in his ways and by fearing him.”
They needed to do this as they entered the land for two reasons. They need to do this because it was God who
was giving it to them. And they needed to to do this in the midst of plenty, because
there would be the temptation to forget Yahweh.
Immediately after our text Moses
says, “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his
commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest,
when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them,
and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied
and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you
forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery.”
There was the danger that in the
midst of plenty they would forget that Yahweh was the One who had rescued them
from slavery in Egypt. Moses goes on to
say, “You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to
get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as
it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and
serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely
perish.”
In the midst of plenty, the
Israelites would need to remember that Yahweh was the One who had redeemed them
from slavery. He had freed them – not
because of who or what they were.
Instead, he did it out of his grace.
Yahweh did it because he had taken Abraham and his descendants into a
covenant. He had promised to make
Abraham into a great nation and to give the land of Palestine to Abraham’s
descendants.
On this evening, we are reminded
that God has done the same thing for you.
By his grace, God has redeemed you from slavery. He has freed you from slavery to Satan, sin
and eternal death. He has taken you into
a covenant – the new covenant that includes all people. He did this by sending his incarnate Son,
Jesus Christ to give himself on the cross as the ransom – the price for your
sin. By the shedding of his blood on the
cross he has established the new covenant that includes Jew and Gentile alike. Through the water of Holy Baptism he washed
away your sins and made you part of his people.
And now, like Israel, you are
journeying in the wilderness. You are living in a fallen world. You are making your pilgrimage to the
promised land – to the new creation which Jesus Christ will bring about when he
returns in glory and gives us a share in his resurrection from the dead.
But unlike Israel during their
journey, you aren’t exactly roughing it.
You aren’t living in tents. You
aren’t eating the same manna, day after day.
You aren’t wearing the same clothes day after day. Instead, you live in the most affluent
culture the world has ever seen. You consider to be normal and take for granted
things that most people in the history of the world have never enjoyed; things
that most people in the world today do not enjoy. You may not have the most and the best, but
simply by living here and now you have more and better than millions and millions
of people.
And that is one of our greatest
challenges. For you see, Yahweh used the conditions of the time in the wilderness
to humble Israel. He used it to teach
them that man does not live by bread alone.
Instead, man lives by reliance on God; by every word that comes from the
mouth of God. Though humbled in the wilderness, Israel soon forgot that
lesson. When they entered the promised
land and enjoyed it benefits, they forgot Yahweh and worshipped other gods.
As we live in the mist of plenty,
that is our great challenge. We live in
a world that is constantly producing new gods – new things that Madison Ave
tells us are “must haves” in order to have the “good life.” The challenge for
us at Thanksgiving – and during the rest of year – is to remember that God is
the source of all that we have. The
challenge is to remember that man does not live by bread alone, but by every
word that comes from the mouth of God.
We need to recognize that real life
– abundant life – is found by remembering that life is found in the Word
who became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the true bread from heaven which
gives life. He is the One who promised,
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever
believes in my shall never thirst.” He is the one who said, “For this is the
will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him
should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
When we place this One – Jesus
Christ – at the center of our life, we are then ready to give thanks for all
the other blessings God gives. When we see him as the greatest blessing and
rejoice in the forgiveness and salvation he provides by grace, we then also
rejoice in the many good things he has given to us. When we live by faith in Christ, we are then
able at Thanksgiving to eat and be full, and to bless the Lord for the good
land he has given to us.
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