Whom Are We Thanking?

Thanksgiving as a holiday has been cheapened.

Love for the Giver of blessings.

For some it has been reduced to pigging out, napping and football. For others its the day to map out the Black Friday battle strategy. (Okay. We need to get to Walmart by 4:30, Kohl’s by 6:15 and then hit the Target/Best Buy/Old Navy circuit before 7:00….) For many unbelievers, Thanksgiving is a truly special time to spend with family and to pause and reflect on the many blessings we enjoy. But herein lies the irony.

Thanksgiving presupposes two things: we have something to give thanks for, and we have someone to give thanks to. I will consider both here.

First, Thanksgiving presupposes that we have something for which we ought to be thankful. And regardless of who you are, you have something to be thankful for, whether you’re actually thankful or not. For most jaded and privileged Americans, the list is so long that we should have Thanksgiving every week. Life. Family. Financial prosperity. Work. Food on the table. Friends. A warm bed. And again, even if you don’t have all of these, you have some of them (and likely a working Internet connection to be thankful for), and it is right to pause and give thanks.

Second, Thanksgiving presupposes that there is a recipient of our thanks. Think about it. Who are we collectively thanking? Chance? Happenstance? The Fates? (Be careful with the Fates; they’re a supernatural, you know.) To ask the question is almost to answer it: we thank God. He is the Giver of all good things and the one Whose kindness we celebrate. The first celebrators of Thanksgiving were clear and explicit about this. They were thankful that God provided for and preserved them, and that is what we do today.

The unbeliever who celebrates Thanksgiving is incurring a greater accountability. He is acknowledging God’s kindness while refusing to submit to Christ as Lord. The awareness of God’s provision of blessing ought to drive him toward God, and when it doesn’t, he incurs greater guilt.

And any person – Christian or unbeliever – who receives without gratitude also commits a sin. Ingratitude is sin, period.

For the unbeliever who celebrates Thanksgiving without celebrating God, his celebration is – at very best – a weak, diluted celebration whether he knows it or not. Let me illustrate.

Ellie and her gift for Daddy.

For Father’s Day, my daughter Ellie gave me a series of drawings of things she likes to do with Dad, which included cartoon depictions of the two of us playing hide-and-seek, going to the zoo, and so on. While I found the drawings amusing, the gift was precious to me because of who gave it. It was lovingly drawn and tailored to tell our story. I was thankful for the gift, but I loved the giver. Would those same drawings have been as precious if I had found them in the street somewhere? Certainly not.

Unbelievers can only love the gift, and on Thanksgiving they can celebrate the mere existence of the things they enjoy. Christians can enjoy the gifts and love the Giver of the gifts. It’s like unbelievers are receiving a random series of cartoon sketches from an anonymous child, while believers recognize and love the Giver behind the gifts, like I love Ellie.

And what we have been given from God as Americans far surpasses my daughter’s drawings (as sweet as they were) in both care and worth because what we have has been given out of the Father’s perfect love.

Finally, I would be remiss if I were not to mention that Christians simply have more to be thankful for than unbelievers. We have been saved from the consequence and power of our sins by grace, given salvation through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. That salvation is something we have received from the Father, and so we ought to thank Him regularly and sincerely.

So Thanksgiving ought to be especially festive and potent for Christians who enjoy the gifts, but love the Giver of the gifts. This changes our whole approach to Thanksgiving. This year I will enjoy a hearty and thanks-filled feast, time with family, and maybe even a nap and football. But through it all I will give happy credit to the Giver of my blessings.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”