Thanksgiving Eve
Deut
8:1-10
11/22/17
Why do we have Thanksgiving? A shallow answer is that we have the holiday
of Thanksgiving so that we can get together with family, eat of bunch of good
food, watch football and do some shopping.
If we were to go a little deeper, I think most people recognize that it
is a time to “count their blessings.”
There is a sense that Thanksgiving is associated with a general appreciation
for the good things that we have. People
change the frame on their Facebook profile picture to say, “Thankful.”
No doubt, you are going to do all
the things I just mentioned. You will
get together with family, eat a bunch of good food, watch football and do some
shopping. However, before you do those
things, you have chosen first to come to the Divine Service tonight. You decided to come to church. This indicates that at some level, you
recognize that what I have just described isn’t good enough.
If thanksgiving is to be biblical
thanksgiving, then it can’t be merely a recognition of how good you have
it. It can’t be a vague sense of
thankfulness that the cosmic forces of chance and fate have treated you pretty
well.
Instead, our text tonight from
Deuteronomy teaches us that real thanksgiving must be focused on God. And when we use the term “God” we have a very
particular referent in mind. We are
referring to the God who has revealed himself and has acted in history. We are talking about the God who has acted to
save you.
Our text from Deuteronomy gives us
one of the sermons that Moses preached to the people of Israel when they were
about to cross over the Jordan into the promised land. This was the second time that Israel was in
the position to do this. The first time, forty years ago, had not gone so
well.
Spies sent across the Jordan River
had brought back a wonderful report – the land was great – it flowed with milk
and honey. However, there was also very bad news. The people who already lived there were no
pushover. They were strong and presented
a serious challenge.
Instead of trusting in Yahweh, the
people of Israel refused to enter the land that God had promised to give to
them. They said their children would just end up slaves when they were
defeated. Yahweh punished their disobedience. He said that instead, only their children
would enter the land. Israel was forced
then to wander and live in the wilderness for forty years. God fed them with manna until now it was once
again time to enter the land. Moses
himself would not be allowed to do so.
In Deuteronomy we hear Moses’ final words to Israel as he recounts what
had happened in the past for those who had often been too young to remember
it. He exhorted Israel to be faithful to
Yahweh and to trust him.
The first part of Deuteronomy
chapter 8 is one of the texts for Thanksgiving.
On close inspection, this may seem surprising. After all, most of what Moses describes in
our text are not things for which we usually give thanks.
It
begins well enough. We hear: “The whole commandment that I command
you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in
and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers.” The starting point was Gospel. The goal was the land that Yahweh promised to
give to their fathers – to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That land was God’s gift. As Israel had already recognized forty years
earlier, they had no chance to go in and take it by their own powers. Instead, it was God who had promised to give
it to Abraham’s descendants. All that
there was for Israel to do was to walk in faith as the people God had taken to
be his own. This response of faith had
been defined by the Torah that Yahweh had given to Israel at Mt. Sinai and was
now being repeated for them.
But then, Moses went on to say, “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.” We learn that God had humbled Israel. He had
tested them to know what was in their heart – whether they would walk in faith
and keep his commandments.
And then Moses added, “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.” Yet again Moses says that God
acted to humble Israel. He had allowed
them to know hunger and had then fed them with manna just as he had said he
would. This experience had a
purpose. It was meant to teach them that
life occurs by trusting in the word that comes from God. Bread is necessary, but not bread alone. Instead, what really matters is living by
faith in what God says.
Moses had spoken about humbling and
testing. And then he added, “Know then
in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines
you.” What is interesting about our text
for Thanksgiving is that the majority of it talks about things for which we don’t give thanks. I don’t know about you, but being humbled,
tested and disciplined does not make me feel thankful. Instead, it makes me want to complain. The old Adam in me sees these all as negative
things. Amy’s brain tumor, surgery, and
now lengthy process of recovery have all been occasions that generate these
kinds of thoughts. I have no doubt that you experience things that do the same.
Yet our text tonight reminds us that
we live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God. God’s Word tells us how things really are. He tells us that those things for which we do
not give thanks are in fact still God at work for our good. In fact … dare I say it … they too are things
for which we need to give thanks. Not
that we give thanks for bad experiences. But we give thanks for the way God is using them.
The only
thing that can enable to maintain this perspective is the Gospel. Moses begins
our text by referring to “the land that Yahweh swore to give to your fathers.” The promise of the land was rooted in God’s
call of Abraham when he said: “Go from your country and your kindred and your
father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great
nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will
curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Yahweh
promised that in the seed of Abraham – in his offspring – all families of the
earth would be blessed. His words were
fulfilled in Jesus Christ who was, as Matthew tells us, “the son of David, the
son of Abraham.” The blessing that God
has given to us in Jesus is forgiveness and salvation.
On one
occasion Yahweh tested Abraham by commanding him to offer his only son Isaac
whom he loved as a sacrifice. Abraham
trusted God and was willing to do this, and ultimately God provided a ram as
the sacrifice in the place of Isaac. However
God the Father did not spare his only begotten Son whom he loved. Instead he offered him as the sacrifice in
your place on the cross. Jesus Christ
received God’s judgment against your sin.
But then, on the third day God raised him from the dead. Through the incarnate Son of God, the Father
has forgiven your sins and defeated death.
God the Father has done this for
you. God’s action in Jesus Christ is the
reason that we now are able to trust God when as a man disciplines his son, the
LORD our God disciplines us. He is the
reason we are able to live not by bread alone but by every word that comes from
the mouth of God. Jesus Christ – the
crucified and risen Lord - is the reason that we are able to walk by faith.
This walk of faith is one of
thanksgiving. We give thanks to God for
the forgiveness and salvation we have received in Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus, we are able to be thankful
for the way God uses times of humbling, testing and disciplining for our good.
God’s action in Christ is the reason
that we now are able to see all of our blessings as coming from God – blessing
for which we give God thanks. At the end of our text Moses says, “So you
shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by
fearing him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land.” The
Israelites needed to walk in faith because God is the One who keeps his
promises. He was about to give them a
good land – a land flowing with milk and honey.
God is the One who blesses us with
everything that we need to support this body and life. In fact, he is the One who provides us with
far more than just that. Our response is
one of thanksgiving. But this is not the
“Thankful” of the world. This is thanks
given to the God who has saved us - real thanksgiving. As Moses says in the last verse of our text,
“And you shall eat and be full, and you
shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.”
By faith we do give thanks. We bless the Lord our God – we give thanks –
because of the forgiveness and salvation he has given us through Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God for the
way he is at work for our good, even when he humbles, tests and disciplines us. We give thanks to God for all of the
blessings that he richly bestows upon us.
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