the thanksgiving gap

As far as holiday traditions go, Thanksgiving isn’t very creative. The tradition is we overeat and as comedian Jim Gaffigan put it, “We do that every day!”  

There is no myth or children’s story about a Turkey that comes down the chimney, prepares all the food, and then jumps in the oven and the next day as you welcome family into your house, the table has been magically prepared. There is no exchanging of gifts, no one sends Thanksgiving cards, there are no ugly Thanksgiving sweaters and, no annoying children who will knock on your door and ask for Thanksgiving candy.

Perhaps that’s the beauty of the holiday. It’s a supposed time where friends and family can enjoy one another’s company over a delicious meal.  It’s a time for introspection. Maybe you’ll go around the dinner table and say what you’re thankful for. You’ll express heart felt gratitude for what you have, what’s been given to you… and in a few hours, you’ll find yourself ungrateful for the company you have as you just want to watch a football game in silence, but then become irritated that the team that has your allegiance is calling running plays up the middle on 3^rd and long. The next day you’ll be at stores pumping money into the economy as you save hundreds on appliances that you essentially admitted that you didn’t need when you were at the dinner table. You’ll lament how commercialized the season has become… while holding bags from Kohls, Best Buy, and applying for a Macy’s credit card. If you don’t take advantage of all the sales, you’ll have nothing to be thankful for the next year.

The holiday season is meant to be a time of rest and relaxation, but it has become a time of stress and bitterness for many. The crowds at the stores are overwhelming, the prospect of preparing meals for numerous relatives, and finding that elusive gift for that special someone all takes its toll on the psyche. How are people supposed to rest in the midst all of this? The preferred unspoken alternative for many people this week and in the weeks to come is to sit in silence, alone, with a glass of wine and a good book, movie, or some music and to become numb to the pressures of life. We are expected to be thankful for jobs that we despise and for families that are broken. It is no wonder that this season is associated with depression for so many. There exists a massive gap between what we want our lives to be and where they actually are. After all the stress of the season goes away, we are left with the monotony of life.

For the Christian, this talk of joy, of rejoicing, that one day all tears will be wiped away, it can all sound cliché and irrelevant to the current reality. We go to church, listen to sermons, are exposed to truth, are reoriented in this world on Sunday mornings, and come Monday, we are lost again. We struggle to make it through the day, thinking that one day, this will all be better, but until then, endurance is the key. But is that attitude, one of passive dutifulness healthy or Biblical?

 A.W Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, “We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there’s a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world. This is the old sacred-secular antithesis. Most Christians are caught in its trap. They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of two worlds. They try to walk the tight rope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength is reduced, their outlook confused and their joy taken from them… The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example and He knew no divided life… God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act… Paul’s exhortation to ‘do all to the glory of God' is more than pious idealism… It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God. Lest we should be too timid to include everything Paul mentions specifically eating and drinking… if these lowly animal acts can be so performed as to honor God, then it becomes difficult to conceive one that cannot.” (Italics mine)

Perhaps it is more than mere coincidence that Thanksgiving is based around a meal. The most basic of human acts that we share with all living creatures are meant to be used to honor and worship God. The Lord’s Supper is a meal that reminds us of what our Lord did for us on the cross and for that we are most thankful. If our eating and drinking on Thursday is to be done in thankfulness to God, what about the rest of our lives?

Most likely, a prayer will be said on Thursday before we indulge in the dinner. But which God will we be thanking? The God that sits on a cloud just watching us with a passive indifference, keeping a list of all that good or bad that we have done, hoping that we make the cut? Or the God who has always been involved with his creation, the one who came and lived among us, ate and drank with us, was tempted like us, who died the death that we deserved, and who rose from the grave like we never could so that we could know and rejoice in him forever?

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong in Christ Jesus”  (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Being thankful in all circumstances requires a trust that you are exactly where God has ordained you to be. As hard as that may be to believe in light of an awful job or economic status, that is the truth and reality we must face. It’s a struggle I face day after day. But I rest on the promises on Christ that he is sufficient for me.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

Thank God for that.