Thanksliving

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 Thessalonians 5 vs. 6
“Everything give thanks.” King James Version

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, there comes to me a challenge from across the years. This challenge goes like this: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” 

Now you might suspect these were the words of a man who lived in a very easy life. Nobody who really tasted the Cup of Life to its bittersweet dregs would ever make such a statement. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Give thanks in sickness and bereavement. Give thanks when unemployment crowds in upon you and the bills pile up. Give thanks when your best friend lets you down. Give thanks when you have pulled a boner that has let your best friend down. These words are certainly that of unrealistic dreamer. 

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” Be realistic man. Take off your grey flannel suit. Come down out of your ivory tower. Be a realist! 

However, to the contrary, these are not the words of a man who lived in a grey flannel suit in a penthouse in an ivory tower. These are the words of a man who was not always prone to thanksgiving. At one time, he felt self-sufficient. He wanted to turn the world upside down all by himself. He singled himself out as a great defender of the faith, heritage, and nationhood of his fathers. He single-handedly was going to wipe out every threat to the heritage in his life. He started by wiping out the followers of the Nazarene. But he did not conquer the lonely Nazarene. Instead, he was conquered by this one who came to him as Christ the Son of God and savior of the world and his life. 

You say be a realist—how can you give thanks in every circumstance? But these are the words of the realist, if there ever was one. He tested life as few men have. These are the words a man who on his first witness to his faith became hated by his former friends and suspected by those with whom he now identified with. At the outset, they had to spirit him away and let him down over a wall in a basket that he might escape. These are the words of a man who had to flee for his life from Iconium and then from Lystra, where he was stoned and dragged out of the city. In Philippi, he was left for dead in prison after a severe beating. In Ephesus, he was the center of a riot. He was arrested in his native Jerusalem, sent to Rome as a prisoner. He was shipwrecked in Malta and was bitten by a poisonous viper. Finally, in Rome he languished in prison for a long time and ultimately was beheaded. 

Nor was this all. He was afflicted with an eye disease that made him obnoxious to look upon. He was the victim of jealous friends, who criticized him and tried to discredit his work. He was the center of much controversy, because of his burning zeal to take the gospel to the gentiles. However, in all this, he could say: “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

I have a Greek word that Paul uses here in this phrase, which is very interesting. The word is somewhat familiar. The word is EUCHARISTEO from which we get the word for the Lord’s Supper or the eucharist. This word is made up of two words EU and CHARIS. The word EU means good, well, or well done. The word CHARIS means grace, which is God’s free favor shown to us. In a sense, thanksgiving is our holding up of our hands in a cheer to God, saying well done for the good things that came from your hand. More than this the Greek word EUCHARISTEO is in the present tense. The present tense in the Greek conveys the idea of action continually going on in the present time. In other words, a good translation of this phrase would be: “Keep on giving thanks in all circumstances.” 

There is a great deal of theology behind this verse. We have to go back to the 8th chapter of Romans at hear Paul say: “We know that in everything God works for good, and for those who love him we are called according to his purpose.” Again, in Philippians he says: “Not that I complain for want, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to be abounded in any and all circumstances. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all these things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4 verses 11-13.) In that same book: “I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” (Philippians 1 verse 12.)

Why? Because God is at work in our lives for good. What is happening to us is really for the advance of the gospel.

Now really, this great spirit of Paul is certainly deeply rooted in our heritage. This week we will go back in our history to the great day of the Pilgrims. Don’t think for a moment these Pilgrims had an easy time. As soon as they landed in this land of milk and honey, they struggled. Governor Bradford wrote: “The whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue. If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean, which they had passed and now was a main gulf and a bar to separate them from all civil parts of this world. What could sustain them but the Spirit of God and his grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our fathers who came over the great ocean and were not ready to perish in the wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he heard their voices and looked on their adversity. Let them therefore praise the Lord because he is good, and his mercies endure forever. “

Stand with that group of thin, emaciated prisoners in the hellish Dachau prison camp, which was the worst horror that Hitler could invent. It is Christmas 1944. When Christmas is celebrated in prison by half-starved, diseased, and dying men, it is the dismal affair. Martin Niemoller, a sunken-eyed, thin hungry, and sick man stands up to speak to the prisoners, who are just as tragically broken as he is. Then, he recalls the names of Jesus, Emmanuel, and God and his eye carries a new client of courage and his voice vibrates with new strength. Hear him as he speaks: “We are not alone amid the horrors of the years, cut off as we are from the outside world, we are in the hands of the God of Jesus Christ who is with us in this dismal and lonely place to uphold and comfort us and keep hope alive in our hearts.” 

“In all circumstances, Give Thanks!”

Susie M. Best put it well in the following poem:

Thanksgiving

Lord I give thanks! 
Last year thou knowest my ambitions failed, 
My backward scourging of defeat was flailed; 
My eyes fell off the sharp, salt wash of tears, 
My gueridon blessed the tireless toil of years,
Fast in the snares my helpless feet were tied, 
Yet in my woes thou didst with me abide. 
Lord I give thanks 

In Lord I give thanks! 
Last year my one lone ship came back to me, 
Around wreck of what she used to be, 
No cargo in her hold, storm-stained and scarred, 
Oh, Lord, thou knowest that it was hard, was hard, 
To watch her drifting Hulk with hopeless eyes, 
Yet, in the desolation thou wert nigh. 
Lord I give thanks!

Lord I give thanks! 
Last year the one I love the dearest died,
In like the desert waste became the wide,
And weary world. Loves last star went out, 
Blackness of darkness wrapped me round about, 
Yet in the midst of my mad misery, 
Thou let us thy road and staff rod and staff to comfort me.
Lord I give thanks!

During World War Two, St Phillips church in London was shattered by bombs. There were many who thought the church could never be rebuilt, for there was so little to salvage. But brave and dedicated people went to work. Soon out of the ruins, there once again rose a spire, with its cross bearing testimony to all the world. At the rededication of the rebuilt cathedral, there was a drama given as part of the service. The prologue of the drama sounded these words:

There lives a beauty that men cannot kill, yea that shall kill all ugliness at last.
Yes, God lives! Let him who works for good, who longs for truth and hopes for right 
give thanks. Our struggles will not end in defeat our sacrifices will not be lost. 
God lives! God is the victory!

Let us look again at our own lives. “Give thanks in all circumstances,” says the Apostle Paul. The other day I heard someone say: “I just can’t think of a thing for which I can be thankful.” Here was a man living in a fine house, with a good family, a job, a church, and just about everything the average American could want. Yet, he could not find a thing for which to be thankful. Someone has described our generation of people like I herd a swine: “Gutted, gorged, and full.” We have taken life for granted, entirely. In our plenty with our ease and our luxury, we have become a generation of grumblers. 

Someone said to me the other day: “You know, down at work I get so depressed. All people talk about is depression and low wages. They gripe—gripe—gripe. Certainly, this attitude is telling of our generation. We are killing more with our automobiles than were ever killed in war. We have developed more new diseases in our generation than a world ever dreamed of. Mental illness is now the chronic disease of our time. I could go on. 

What is our trouble? I think the chronic trouble of our times is just what Paul was driving at. We have lost faith in God, a God who is working out all the things for good in our lives, even when we are imprisoned, beaten, deprived, and suffer want. I want you to know, brethren, that all that has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. 

We are the children of the Pilgrims. See them as they leave the Mayflower to stand on a new shore with all the perils and hardships. The food was running low. Scurvy threatened them. Indians lurked in the Woods. But they built their altar as Noah did when he left the Ark. They gave thanks to God who brought them this far, and they believe he would see them through. 

As we go into Advent season this week, the central theme is, “His name shall be called Immanuel,” which means God is with us. He is walking down the road with us. In all things his hand is leading. All things are working together for good. Therefore, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

There is something about this kind of Thanksgiving that does something to us. It takes the frown off our face, the fear out of our eyes, and the grumbling off our lips. It puts a confidence and boisterousness in our lives that makes all the difference. It is the kind of boisterousness and high spirit that gives us faith and makes for a healthy personality. It puts our heart to the center and back in our lives. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” 

I think I can hear Paul say, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” The ultimate victory is assured. He caught the vision that he later saw at Patmos when he said: “And John saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God.” Paul could say, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness.” 

Victor Hugo caught the vision when he wrote: “For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse. But I feel I have not said a thousandth part what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say like many others, I have finished my day’s work, but I cannot say, I have finished my life. My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the Twilight. It opens on the dawn.”

This is a faith by which we live. It is a faith in God and in Christ who is bringing in his eternal Kingdom. We are together sharing in that work. The Kingdom may be slow in coming. Our task may be discouraging. Our burden may be heavy. But ever in our eyes, there glimmers that eternal light. We pray with real faith, may that Kingdom come, knowing that it will, for God is at work in our lives and in our world. He will accomplish his task. This makes our burdens lighter and our task easier—for these are for the advance of the gospel—we are the heralds of his Kingdom—so—”We give thanks in all circumstances, for God is at work and all our lives.”