2025-10-12 Thanksgiving Sunday

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

I often wonder at “how stuff came to be.” You know, like traditions that we take for granted. Thanksgiving rolls around and oh look, there’s the turkey! There’s the pumpkin pie! Nary a second thought. But do you ever stop and wonder why that’s the case? Why are these things such a staple of the Thanksgiving holiday and not, I don’t know, Sharp-tailed grouse and cantaloupe cream pie?! Isn’t it wacky when you sit back and think about it?! The first recorded Canadian Thanksgiving was in 1578, when explorer Martin Frobisher held a feast in what is now Nunavut to give thanks for surviving his journey. By contrast, the U.S. didn’t formalize Thanksgiving for another 285 years in 1863! Now riddle me this! How many wild turkeys do you think were running around Nunavut back then?! How many pumpkin fields were there in the tundra!? My hunch is not that many! We should probably be eating roasted whale blubber and seal eye pie instead of turkey & punkin’ for our authentic, Canadian Thanksgiving staples!

“And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:10). And there’s the Biblical roots of Thanksgiving that we can all agree on! The Lord has blessed us abundantly and in turn, it is right to give Him thanks and praise. This teaching from Deuteronomy is part of a series of speeches from Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab. They were just about to enter the Promised Land after the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. This particular verse comes from the second speech where Moses is hammering away on the people of God, drilling into them the teaching of remaining faithful to God as they prepare to inherit the land promised to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the big moment, folks! Don’t screw it up. Specifically: do not forget God’s provisions to you during times of prosperity.

This land, is a good land, flowing with milk and honey. There is abundance here. The land of Canaan. It was fertile and produced amazing crops. You can just see the wide-eyed Israelites eyeing this land up. After wandering in the sweltering, arid desert for decades, finally, they have arrived. Moses cautions the Israelites not to let the prosperity of the land lead them down the path of pride or self-reliance. The passage reminds them that their success—whether in agriculture, wealth, or security— it all comes directly from the God of their salvation, not their own efforts.

Verses 14–16 recall the hardships that they endured in the wilderness. Serpents and scorpions, a thirsty ground and lack of water. And despite these difficulties, God’s miraculous provisions accompanied them and supplied them richly. Manna, the ‘what is it?’ bread of the wilderness and water from the rock. This serves as a humbling reminder of dependence on God and His truly miraculous provision for His people. “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” (DT 8:17-18).

It was Thanksgiving weekend on the prairies, South East Saskatchewan, if memory serves. A father wanted to make this year’s dinner the best Thanksgiving yet. He had his grandma’s famous pumpkin pie recipe, cranberries ready to simmer on the stove, huge table with a place setting for 12. The whole family was coming home. He knew in his heart that they needed to have a splendid turkey to make everything just right. He figured they’d go organic to boot on this Thanksgiving, so he set off to go hunt a wild turkey in the oak woods just south of town. This dad wasn’t really much of a hunter, but he watched a few YouTube videos and figured, “how hard can it be!?” Armed with a net and a bucket of corn he sets out into the forest. It’s not long and behold, he spots a turkey - a big, proud gobbler! He immediately gives chase, net at the ready! Ol’ Tom Turkey takes off like he’s auditioning for the Olympics! The dad is running and stumbling over roots, corn is flying everywhere, he trips and falls and after about an hour of these antics, he’s head to toe mud, out of breath and turkey-less. In defeat he trudges home. His wife greets him at the door. “Where’s the turkey?” she asks. Dishevelled and defeated he replies “that bird was just too fast for me! I know he’s laughing with all his turkey buddies right now, telling them the story of how he outran the idiot with a net!” His wife just chuckled and walked over to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and pulled out a store-bought turkey and says “shall we give thanks for grocery stores now or later?!”

As Christians, we can’t really talk about what we are thankful for without first talking about to Whom we are thankful. We might think the turkey comes from the store, or the woods, but we know that like everything else we have, it’s truly a gift from God. And this is the actual point that Moses was trying to drill into the people way back then in Deuteronomy. When people have abundance, when the blessings abound everywhere, the temptation is massive to forget God as the source. One would think it would be the exact opposite. All these blessings and more should make us more thankful with hearts full of gratitude to our Lord. But in practice, it doesn’t. We see people falling into the same trap that Moses warned them about. All of us are guilty of this to varying degrees. We don’t thank our Lord for all His benefits to us like we ought. Instead, we complain. We whine and whinge about this and that, ignoring and taking for granted God’s every day blessings.

Did you turn a tap on this morning? Did hot water come out of the shower faucet? Did you stop and give thanks right then and there? Probably not. Running water and on demand hot water at that - these things are cornerstones of health and convenience in our society! Did you wake up from a warm bed, flip a light switch and put on clean clothes? Did you drive to church in a car, on a road? Did you get shot at or persecuted for coming here this morning?! Are you going to school or work Tuesday so you can learn or provide for your family? When you went to pickup all the fixins for Thanksgiving dinner at the store, aisle after aisle chock full of food and supplies, did you give God thanks and praise? Have you seen all the beautiful fall colours in the trees and fields over the past few weeks? Just stop and think about it. Cell phones, internet, GPS navigation, hydraulics, tractors, combines and curling irons. All of these blessings and technologies that we enjoy every single day, we take them all for granted. We treat them like each one is a given! We treat them like we are entitled to them, by virtue of being alive. Our society has largely fallen into this trap that Moses warned us about.

So what is the corrective to this rampant entitled thanklessness? Here’s an insider tip: it’s always the same answer! It’s always repentance! We confess our sins of thanklessness. Yes, we have taken all these blessings for granted. We have not stopped to thank God for His gracious provision of all of our needs and wants. So we confess these things and receive God’s rich and abundant forgiveness. We give tremendous thanks and praise to God for the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord that takes away our thankless hearts and gives us new ones overflowing in thanksgiving. Our Lord’s forgiveness, life and salvation flows to us by no work or merit of our own. It is only by the pure gift of God’s amazing grace.

We keep our hearts and minds focused on Jesus. And as we do, thanksgiving grows more and more. It’s not just a one day a year thing with a slab of Turkey and a side order of stuffing. It’s every moment of every day! We thank the Lord for all His benefits to us. He richly supplies our every need. Soon we find ourselves rejoicing like King David in Psalm 106: “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever!” (v1). Thanks be to God, now and forever more! Happy Thanksgiving! Amen!