Written by Dating back to October 3rd, 1789, when President George Washington gave the very first Thanksgiving Proclamation, marking Thursday November 26th of that year as a “day of public thanks-giving”, it has been customary for every U.S. President to offer their own proclamation for Thanksgiving each year.
Against the backdrop of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln said the following in his Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3rd, 1863:
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
…No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
It should be noted that as did Washington before him, Lincoln invited the American people not only to observe the holiday as a day of Thanksgiving, but also as a time for humble penitence of our transgressions.
The Civil War plunged our country into a time of unparalleled violence, division, and uncertainty. Yet by God’s providence, the country was preserved through this trial to become a greater union than it was before. It can be helpful for us to remember this fact not merely as a nation but more so as the Church, that as we endure increasingly perilous times, so long as we remain faithful to the Almighty, there remains the hope that we will be preserved, sanctified to a greater union and a holier state, with Christ as the head.
That we are experiencing an unprecedented rate of change individually and in the world around us goes without saying. As we have examined before, even the advance of modern technology alone, and now artificial intelligence, accelerates at a rate far exceeding our natural ability to adapt to it. It is enough to make your head spin!
But naturally, the Holy Scriptures offer us the answer. The author of James offers us this verse:
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:16-17).
If we backed up one verse, we would see that James begins this passage by warning, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers” (James 1:16). The author, having just finished warning against the process by which the testing of one’s faith turns into temptation, and temptation into sin, now contrasts that against the good gifts which God gives us. For nothing good can come except from God, he reminds us.
We may chase our ever-changing passions and desires (so often linked to the ever-changing landscape of popular trends), and we may even deem those things to be “good.” But anything which is truly good can only come from God, and God never changes. God never changes or diminishes in His brightness. He is unchanging in His goodness, mercy, and love, and He will never leave us or forsake us.
This is why we must never neglect giving our thanks to God above all else. Absent God, we are prone to fill the void with lesser gods, all of which are subject to the changing tides of sin. And that space will often be filled by a sort of secular religion – on both sides of the political spectrum, for that matter.
The Thanksgiving holiday perfectly encapsulates this phenomenon. Either Americanism is elevated to a religion in and of itself, with Jesus given an American flag to wave, or a sort of anti-American, anti-Western liberation theology is taken up, whereby Thanksgiving becomes an occasion for shame and repentance for the original sin of “settler colonialism.”
As an interesting footnote, I recently learned that Squanto, the Native American interpreter who served as a liaison between the Mayflower pilgrims and the Native American population in New England, was technically a Catholic. As it turns out, Squanto was rescued from slavery by a group of Dominican friars, who later taught and baptized him in the Catholic faith. They helped Squanto get to England, from where he learned English as a means to returning to his homeland. He would become an English interpreter for six trans-Atlantic voyages to the New World, eventually helping to arrange what would become known as the “first Thanksgiving.” In an interesting irony of history, a Native American Catholic cooperated with Protestant Separatists in the first Thanksgiving meal. God’s providence works in mysterious ways.
It is worth noting that the early colonists of the New World faced grim living conditions and a dire outlook for survival – especially the Pilgrims who settled in New England. Only but a small fraction of those who disembarked from the Mayflower survived through that brutal first New England winter. When they set aside this occasion for thanks, they did not thank God out of their abundance – for their fat retirement accounts, their new cars, and getting a couple extra days off from work, for their powerful military and advanced technology. No, they gave thanks in the face of grim conditions. They gave thanks out of their poverty. The Pilgrims were grateful simply for their survival, and the opportunity to seek God in freedom.
As we are warned in the book of Deuteronomy: “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).
Our circumstances are constantly changing, but our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ is constant, rooted in the promise of the God with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. This is why if we limit our gratitude to that which is shallow, such as our possessions or our own personal accomplishments, then we will quickly be uprooted when the storms of life hit us.
Jesus demonstrated this principle to the highest degree when He instituted the Lord’s Supper. As Saint Paul wrote,
“…[T]he Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Jesus, facing down what he knew was his certain betrayal and brutal death on the cross, gave thanks in obedience to the Father.
We participate in this Great Thanksgiving each week in the Holy Eucharist – “eucharist” literally meaning, “thanksgiving” in the Greek. Following Christ’s example, we give thanks even when the specter of great peril is looming before us, because we have received an ultimate, unchanging Good through faith in Jesus Christ, which extends eternally beyond any of the temporal things most people call “good.”
There is no shortage of change and decay to be seen all around us. May we therefore be comforted in knowing that the God who changes not still abides with us, and always will. And that is something for which we can be truly thankful. May God’s abundant blessings be upon you, and may you have a most blessed Thanksgiving and Advent season.
Image: The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, 1914, by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe