by Pastor Peter Sulzle
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
I’d like you to consider three scenarios. As you picture these scenes, you might wonder at first how they exemplify Thanksgiving. On the surface they may seem like the opposite of Thanksgiving. But I think they capture this verse from Thessalonians and what it means to be thankful in all circumstances.
The first is from the Old Testament. It’s the story of Job. Job has come to represent the epitome of suffering and how people deal with it. All his children are killed in an accident. His possessions are destroyed. He is facing financial ruin. His health is failing. His wife tells him to curse God. His so-called friends blame him for his tragedy. If anyone had a reason to say, “Let’s just skip Thanksgiving this year,” it would be Job. Yet in the midst of this immeasurable suffering, God comes to Job and speaks a very interesting statement, “Hear this, O Job. Stop and consider the wondrous works of God” (Job 37:14). From all the outward circumstances, it seems as though Job has nothing at all to be thankful for. Nothing had gone as he had planned for his life. Yet God essentially tells him, “It’s time to count your blessings.”
The second scenario is from the New Testament. The Apostle Paul finds himself squarely in the middle of a dingy Roman prison facing serious charges for preaching the gospel. Things seem pretty bad for him and he didn’t have any reason to think it would get better considering his track record. He had been shipwrecked, nearly beaten to death, nearly stoned to death, and persecution followed him wherever he went. Trouble with the authorities had become commonplace. Physically speaking, his life was going a whole lot better before Jesus appeared to him and changed his heart. Ever since then, it was trouble after trouble. Now he faces the prospect of death again, this time by a sentence of execution. But in the middle of this situation, Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus, “Thanks be to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.” How could the Paul count his blessings in these circumstances? Like Job, what does he have to be thankful for?
The third scenario comes from our American heritage. It is the story of the Pilgrims. The picture is quite different than the quaint and happy scene we normally see of the Pilgrims dining with their native brothers at a huge feast stuffing themselves full until they were ready for a lazy afternoon nap. The more factual scene is one of deprivation, hardship, suffering, and pain. At the first Thanksgiving, you likely would have found over half of the 101 settlers dead from lack of nourishment, harsh weather, and a host of diseases. They were mostly buried in unmarked graves for fear that some natives would see their weaknesses and exploit them. They were people without a country. At this point they could only look ahead and see months of famine and disease. Yet in the midst of this hardship, they set aside a time to give thanks to God for all of his blessings. As in the first two scenarios, their outward circumstances begged the question, “What did they have to be thankful for?”
Job, Paul, and the Pilgrims understood thankfulness quite differently than the average American today. Typically, we talk about what we are thankful for. We look at all of the things we have and our level of appreciation rises as the list increases. Certainly we ought to be grateful to our God for the blessings he gives to us. We will recount many of those in our service today. We can especially be thankful that through faith we recognize where all these blessings come from … our good and gracious God. Many people only thank their lucky stars or maybe the people around them. So we certainly thank God for all our blessings. But what if, like Job, like Paul, like the Pilgrims, these things just vanished from our lives. No more home, no more family, no more health, no more freedom. Would that mean you have no reason for thanksgiving?
If we understand thanksgiving the way they did, then we see it, not just as being thankful for something, but being thankful in something…specifically in all circumstances. In the midst of everything and anything – in death, in loss, in hardship, in plenty, in want, in sickness, in health, in failure, in success—the Christian faith has a common theme … we turn to God in praise. We praise God from whom all blessings flow. Sometimes those blessings come in the difficult times we experience or the lesson we learn from the things we have that are taken away. Our dear Heavenly Father knows best how to care for his children. That doesn’t mean spoiling us with everything we want … although we often get that … but it means giving us what we need. He has proven this grace and mercy in giving us a Savior to redeem us from all our selfishness and greed.
You and I have a Savior in any and all circumstances. Job and Paul learned that no circumstance could change what the Savior had done for them. In fact, every circumstance served to focus them on what that Savior did. Your circumstances serve to focus you on this fact too: the victory is yours through faith in Jesus Christ. So this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Give thanks in all circumstances.
From a biblical perspective, this gratitude is to be expressed in thankful lives, not just thankful voices. We can look at gratitude as having good manners. One of the first things we teach children when someone gives them something is to say, “Thank you.” That’s a very good thing. But Biblical gratitude is more than writing a “Thank You” note or setting aside one day a year to reflect on God’s gifts. We need to be careful so our talk doesn’t become cheap. Instead we ask the Lord to direct our lives so that they reflect our thankful hearts in words and actions. So Job and Paul and the Pilgrims pressed on in their difficult situations with trust in God that he would bless them. He did bless them in different ways. I know he did because that’s what God does for his people in every circumstance. So we can live in thankfulness in every circumstance too.
You may have heard the story behind a familiar hymn we sing in this service, “Now Thank We All Our God.” It was written in 1607 by a German named Martin Rinkert. He wrote the hymn in one of the most difficult circumstances you could possibly imagine. Over 6,000 people in and around his town had died of the plague. He was performing dozens of funerals a day. The funerals included that of his wife and children. In the middle of this catastrophic loss for him and his people, Rinkert penned this hymn of praise:
Now thank we all our God
with hearts and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love
and still is ours today.
Jesus knows your circumstance too. He cares deeply, so deeply that he took all your sin and pain and suffering and he promises you the hope of life with him forever no matter what the circumstance. Trust that he has the final word when it comes to your final victory. Counting your blessings starts there … and it never ends. So give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Peter Sulzle is pastor at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church, Redwood Falls, Minnesota.