Thanksgiving

Have you ever thought about what it means to give thanks?

My first Thanksgiving Day experience here in the States was a great one.  We were able to spend much of the day with family, eat great food and, as is apparently customary, take an afternoon nap. Thanksgiving Day is, of course, all about giving thanks.  Traditionally, giving thanks to God.

Jesus is recorded as giving thanks only twice in the New Testament.  Once before his miraculous feeding of the five thousand and another at the Last Supper.  Given the extensive use of the word 'thanks' today, it seems odd that we don't hear Jesus say or express thanks more often. One thing Jesus did do, however, was to reach beyond simply giving thanks as we know it.  Rather than simply a pleasantry, both instances of his giving thanks are shortly followed by dynamic action. Jesus was not content with simply giving thanks.

The day after Thanksgiving in the States, commonly referred to as Black Friday, is an altogether different affair.  Most stores offer huge discounts and sales and bargain hunters begin queuing outside their doors in the early hours of the morning.  This past Friday, a Walmart employee in New York was trampled to death by shoppers desperate to enter the store.  Reportedly, over 2000 people had gathered and, evidently no longer willing to wait, began pounding and hammering on the doors of the superstore.  I wonder how many had, less than 12 hours before, been sharing a cordial dinner with their families?  I wonder if some had given thanks to God for his kindness to them and their kin?

While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them.  He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"

When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?"  And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him.  

Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?  Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me.  But this is your hour - when darkness reigns."

Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest.

For Jesus, giving thanks was not a thoughtless expression or even simply a response to God's goodness, it was a definitive action.  When we give thanks to God, or to others, does it end there? Is it but a fleeting recognition of a previous act or is it a call to future action?

That action is what makes the difference between Thanksgiving Day and the day after. How will we choose to act?