As we mark another Thanksgiving Day, traditional celebrations seem to be fading. While Americans are spending more and more money on elaborate Halloween and Christmas celebrations, Thanksgiving is apparently feeling the squeeze in the current economy. One exasperated mom in Mississippi took to TikTok: “Me doing those beans, greens, potatoes, tomatoes, yam, lamb, ram, ham. … I’m not doing it. I ain’t got the funds,” she said in her viral video.
While some are cutting back out of economic necessity, others are skipping Thanksgiving out of choice. According to AAA, Thanksgiving travel will break a record this year with nearly one out of four Americans on the road or in the air. While some are no doubt headed “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house” as the old song goes, many Americans are simply deciding to go on vacation and not gather around the Thanksgiving table for turkey and dressing, opting to enjoy the beach instead.
Others refuse to celebrate Thanksgiving based on their ideological opposition to it, choosing instead to participate in a “National Day of Mourning.” As a recent piece in The Nation declared: “Thanksgiving’s roots are intertwined with colonial aggression,” recommending instead: “Let’s tell a different story by dropping the lie of Thanksgiving and begin a Truthsgiving.” Of course, that particular version of the “truth” holds that the oppressors, the Pilgrims, stole the land from the Native Americans, the oppressed.
Then there are those who are canceling Thanksgiving for purely political reasons. Obviously suffering from a bad case of post-election TDS, @tonyahky posted on Daily Kos: “This year, I have decided to cancel Thanksgiving dinner at my house. I see little to be thankful for this year after seeing that the majority of Americans willfully chose fascism — including a lot of my family members.”
Consequently, there seems to be a growing chorus of voices in America either objecting to Thanksgiving for various reasons or simply seeing no need to celebrate it at all. Is the day of family gatherings around the table for a traditional observance coming to an end? Are Thanksgiving’s days numbered? I hope not.
At the very least, Christ-followers should continue to keep Thanksgiving, not just because of tradition but because we are truly thankful to God. Honestly, thanksgiving should be more than a “day” on the calendar. It ought to be a way of life. Indeed, the Scriptures in both the Old Testament and New Testament command it. David proclaimed: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (1 Chronicles 16:34). Paul encouraged: “[G]ive thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Our Lord Jesus Himself modeled it, with the gospel writers recording how He thanked God publicly for truth revealed, food multiplied, the dead raised, and His body and blood sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins (e.g., Matthew 11:25–27; 15:36; John 11:41-43; Luke 22:14–20). Of all people, sinners saved by the amazing grace of God ought to be grateful people.
We are reading through Isaiah this week in our Stand on the Word Bible Reading Plan. The passage for November 27 is Isaiah 11-12. Chapter 11 looks forward to the coming of Messiah, described as the fruit-bearing, Spirit-filled “Branch” from the stump of Jesse, who will one day judge the world with righteousness, bring peace to all creatures, and gather Jew and Gentile alike under His rule. King Jesus will truly “make the world great again!” Then in chapter 12, the prophet predicts the response of God’s people:
“You will say in that day: ‘I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation’” (vv. 1-3a).
Did you notice the response begins with our thanksgiving? Then, Isaiah not only doubles down on this theme of gratitude as the proper response of a saved people, but he also takes it a step further:
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel’” (vv. 3b-6).
In addition to our genuine thanksgiving to the Holy One of Israel, the prophet urges joyous singing and winsome testifying as the natural progression from our grateful hearts. What a great playbook for our Thanksgiving celebrations!
Every Thanksgiving, we gather with family and invited guests for a traditional feast, going around the table, reading Scriptures about giving thanks, sharing personal testimonies about the goodness of God, offering prayers of thanks to God, and even singing praises to God. After the amazing meal and before my wife readies her epic desserts, we remember the Pilgrims, their journey, their hardships, and those first couple of Thanksgiving celebrations with their Native American neighbors in the New World.
I tell the group about the 102 brave souls who came over on the Mayflower, and how the Pilgrims sang psalms of praise to God as they crossed the storm-tossed sea. How they thanked God when they reached these shores: “They fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries therof.” I tell how half of them died during the harsh winter. Governor William Bradford reports that during January and February that two or three died per day. Yet even in dying, the Pilgrims were such a witness to their hope in Christ that several of the non-Pilgrims came to personal faith in Jesus. Each family that came over on the Mayflower lost at least one member. Some children lost both parents.
However, I also tell how God providentially sent the English-speaking native Squanto to teach them how to hunt, fish, and plant corn. Governor Bradford described Squanto as “a [special] instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.” And of course, we talk about how the English settlers and the natives gathered in the fall of 1621 after their harvest for three days of feasting, fun, firearms, and faith. Easy enough to remember, right?
Feasting
Since the Pilgrims compared themselves to the Israelites coming out of bondage in England to what they hoped would become their Promised Land, they likely modeled that first Thanksgiving feast after the Feast of Tabernacles. Plus, they had celebrated Thanksgiving for years in their adopted home in Leiden, Holland, which held an annual thanksgiving celebration for their independence from Spain on October 3.
For their first Thanksgiving feast in America, their Wampanoag neighbors brought the deer as well as some fish. The Pilgrims contributed turkey, duck, and geese, various corn dishes, berries, vegetables, and some bread and biscuits. They even prepared berries cooked with molasses in a dough casing, an early version of the famous New England pie. So, there was plenty of feasting, not unlike we do today.
Fun
The young Pilgrim and Wampanoag men engaged in foot races, wrestling matches, and athletic events. The Pilgrims had a game called stoolball. Of course, today Americans watch football and basketball on Thanksgiving Day. So, there were fun, sporting games not unlike we have today.
Firearms
Myles Standish treated the group to a military parade down their makeshift main street complete with a drill and demonstration of their firelocks. That was the Pilgrim version of the Thanksgiving Day parade. However, instead of Santa Claus being the showstopper at the end, Standish capped off their parade by dry firing their canon from their fort that also doubled as their church meeting house. That made quite an impression on their Native American guests! But they had firearms in a parade, and at least we still have the parades.
Faith
As was their custom, Elder William Brewster, their mission church pastor, would have led them in prayers of thanksgiving to God for His goodness and blessing in giving them this bountiful harvest to share. This celebration and its accompanying activities 400 years ago are the origins of the holiday that Americans now celebrate each November we call Thanksgiving.
Regarding this matter of faith, I am inspired by the Pilgrims and how they model what the prophet is calling for believers to do in Isaiah 12:4: “Make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.” The Mayflower Compact, their governing document stated that they came: “For the Glory of God” and “For the advancement of the Christian faith.” They came on a mission to establish a colony that would begin to Christianize the New World. Bradford stated clearly that they had “… A great hope & inward zeall they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagating & advancing the gospell of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world [Acts 1:8]; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work.”
They saw some success. After they established what became a 50-year mutual-defense treaty with the Wampanoags, Chief Massasoit even gave a Christian name to his youngest daughter Sarah. They won most of the natives on Nantucket Island to Christ. Later, the first Bible in America was not printed in English but in Algonquin — the common language of the New England tribes, so that Pastor John Eliot, the apostle to the indians, could use it to win the natives to Christ.
In the spirit of Isaiah 12:5: “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously.” Governor Bradford summed up their efforts in 1630 by giving God all the credit and the praise: “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.”
Think about it. America has become the greatest missionary nation on earth, with more money going to missions and more missionaries sent around the globe from America than any other nation. And it all started in Plymouth, with a small group of persecuted Pilgrims, who sang psalms of praise to God on their way here, thanked God for his deliverance and provision from the time they arrived and every step along the way, shared their faith with their native neighbors, and gave God praise — just as Isaiah 12 prescribed.
So don’t let Thanksgiving Day become just a “speed bump” in the mad dash for the Christmas season. Slow down. Gather around the Thanksgiving table as a family and invite some guests to join in. Pause to give gratitude to God. Read Scriptures about giving thanks. Go around the table and take turns offering a Thanksgiving testimony to God’s goodness and grace, for His provision and His deliverance over the past year. Remember the Pilgrims who started the practice of Thanksgiving here in America. And before you are done, sing about the goodness of God with joy. Following the prescription in Isaiah 12 and the example of the Pilgrims can breathe new life into your celebration. Let’s keep Thanksgiving!