Aul that and more

The War on Thanksgiving November 15, 2014

We’ve all heard about the War on Christmas. Well, I’d like to point out another war, one we may not even even recognize is being fought and lost: The War on Thanksgiving.

You’re probably asking, well, what do I mean, the War on Thanksgiving? What war?

If you go to any store this time of year, you see Christmas decorations. Stores are already encouraging you to shop for that special gift now. Even before Halloween, I began seeing Christmas stuff in the stores. Now go look for Thanksgiving stuff. You probably won’t find much, if any. And it seems they just keep pushing Christmas earlier and earlier. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. It’s probably my favorite holiday. I like all the pretty lights and Christmas trees. I like baking and eating Christmas goodies. And I like getting Christmas shopping done early (paticularly if you order online and have to leave time for gifts to arrive in the mail). It’s fun to try and find gifts I know my family will love. And I love listening to Christmas music. But more and more, Christmas has pushed Thanksgiving out of the way. Now of course I’m sure turkeys would be glad if we skipped Thanksgiving. But brushing past Thanksgiving to get to Christmas sooner has bothered me. But I never could quite explain why it bothered me.

Then earlier this year, my cousin loaned me a book entitled “One Thousand Gifts” by Ann Voskamp.
One thing she points out in her book that has stuck with me, one simple statement: “Thanksgiving precedes the miracle.” Now to fully understand Thanksgiving, we need to go back to the Greek word for Thanksgiving, which is eucharisteo. This word encompasses the root word charis, which means grace, and the derivative, chara, meaning joy. Thanksgiving incorporates both grace and joy. Another point she made that struck me was the idea that all of sin can be boiled down to the sin of ingratitude. The idea that God is not enough. And ultimately, “if our fall was the non-eucharisteo, the ingratitude, then salvation must be intimately related to eucharisteo, the giving of thanks.”

Only by giving thanks can we understand the miracle that was to come. It’s no coincidence that in our calendar Thanksgiving comes before Christmas, and Christmas before Passover and Easter. Only by the giving of thanks can we understand what Christmas is really about. Only by giving thanks can we comprehend the ultimate miracle that began with Christ’s birth. He came to earth, ultimately, to die on the cross so that we could be reconclied to Him. The ultimate miracle being Christ’s resurrection from the dead, which we celebrate at Easter. And it all begins with Thanksgiving.

See, the world doesn’t understand Thanksgiving. The world lives in the sin of ingratitude, and therefore they can’t understand the miracle: Christ’s birth. And because they can’t understand it, they want to skip it. The world doesn’t want you to take time to pause and give thanks to a God they don’t acknowledge even exists. They would rather turn the miracle of Christmas into nothing more than an excuse to blow your budget on all the latest toys and electronic gadgets. A lot of stores even have started having their Black Friday sales begin on Thanksgiving Day, which means that employees have to spend Thanksgiving Day working instead of with their familes. They try to convince you that what you have isn’t enough; that you need more. That God isn’t enough. They even try to remove Christ from Christmas. But without Christ, Christmas is utterly meaningless. But when we take time to pause, and give thanks, and recognize that God truly is all that we need, then we are able to see Christmas, and ultimately Easter, for the miracles that they are.