Thanksgiving Day 2011

Thanksgiving Day. The parade is on the TV, Reformation-era Thanksgiving hymns are on the stereo, and two eager carcasses are bubbling away on the stove in a warm bath of onion-apple water and brandy. I lean over to my wife and tell her "thanks honey." She asks what for, and I reply, "I don't know. It's just Thanksgiving." She chuckles, and I get back to finishing the dishes. As I'm loading silverware into the dishwasher rack, I'm thinking about what I just said. What is gratitude without reason? Honestly, it isn't anything. It's just words. Thanksgiving must have a reason because it is a response, not the initial act. I am thankful for something and to someone for services rendered unto me. I am thankful to my wife for her love, and her patience, to name just two from the warehouse of reasons. If I am to be truly grateful, I must know what it is I am grateful for, what it was that someone did for me.

In this regard, Thanksgiving Day is not unlike every Sunday of the year. In fact, Thanksgiving Day is only possible because of the year's abundance of Sundays. Every Lord's Day we celebrate what our Fathers called The Eucharist, a greek word simply meaning "I Thank." This term was applied to the Table because it is at precisely there that we, as God's guests, say thank you to our Host. We have been invited into the household of God. Our feet have been washed. We have entered the door. We have sat at His feet with Martha's sister and listened to His word. We are now called to the table: "Dinner is ready!" comes the longed-for voice. At the table we find a feast of bread and wine spread before us. And we are bid, "Come and eat. This is given for you." The only response is to say "Thank you" and eat.

Those two carcasses bubbling away on the stove speak volumes of the true meaning of Thanks. Every "thank you" finds that it is a response to some form of sacrifice. Someone did something for you that took, at the very least, time that could have been used doing something else. Instead, they sacrificed that time for your benefit, and in response we say "thank you." Every true and loving sacrifice finds, at its root, the cross. Death for life. In the death of the God-Man there is life, for in His death, death died. Death is no longer our enemy, but our mode of life. As we love others more than ourselves, we are picking up our cross, we are dying daily. It no longer carries the stigma of fear and the unknown. Rather, death now has become the very way of life. It is the very basis for our thanksgiving.

And so I give thanks for the turkey. I give thanks for the carcass that, even in death, is giving us not only mere sustenance, but depth of flavor and rich joy. It is by means of death that we live and enjoy our table today. It is by means of the Death, and the subsequent conquering of Death, that we live and enjoy life at all. So let us live. Let us enjoy. By doing so we say, "Thank you."