Thanksgiving Ghetto

I am something of a holiday junkie - I especially love the fall and winter ones: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. As much as I love them, they are often disappointing to me. I recognize it's because a single day can't possibly bear the weight of my expectations. And that the build-up to most holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas similarly overwhelm the day itself.

Last Sunday evening I had to speak for a few minutes to a church audience about Thanksgiving (I was the filler between two youth skits). As I sat in the pew during the first skit I had no idea what to say. I did a quick search for the word "thanks" on my Android Bible and noticed something obvious. The word "thanks" appears in a central moment of the Christian faith - the Last Supper. When Paul writes about it later, he says "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?" (I Corinthians 10:16 NIV 1984)

Thanksgiving? A meal, an ordinance, a sacrament that focuses on sacrifice is one of thanks? I have read many words of thanks over the last few days and even weeks. Most, if not all, were thanks for good things. Rightly so. But Jesus says "thanks" to His Father as He faces His own death. I get the notion of our thanksgiving in the midst of Communion for God's gift in Jesus Christ. But to give thanks in the midst of suffering, for suffering, for loss?

Am I grateful for the ways that God allows me to make sacrifices for Him? Can I stand in the midst of my friends and family and say "thank you" to God when grief and loss come to me?

I'm not quite there. Or, honestly, even close. The more I lose - a natural function of age and experience by the way - the harder this becomes.

But it is necessary. It is central. Perhaps I can't really be thankful until I give thanks in the midst of what I have lost.

Gratitude, real thanksgiving, is bigger than my blessings. It is more than what I have received with gladness. Saying "thanks" only for what I want and love is too small a thanks. It can't bear the weight of life or faith. My gratitude is overwhelmed when I can only give my thanks to God once a year or when I feel it for that matter.

Give thanks in every situation because this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

(1 Thessalonians 5:18 CEB)