A Sermon by Nate Wilson delivered to Christ the Redeemer Church 19 Nov 2006 & 22 Nov 2020
cf. “A Thanksgiving Game Plan Inspired by Succoth” Nov 2014
When I was a child, Thanksgiving was a big holiday. Stores and schools had special Thanksgiving decorations out all November – cute pictures of English puritan children and American Indian children with ears of corn and turkeys. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving I remember it being a big deal to make special Thanksgiving decorations and even cook and eat a pot of soup together with my elementary school class – something we did for no other holiday. And there was candy corn – one of my favorite treats!
But nowadays it seems that stores are going straight from Halloween to Christmas in their decorations, completely skipping Thanksgiving. Instead of building up to Thanksgiving as a special time of giving thanks to God, our culture has changed to see Thanksgiving as merely a prelude to Black Friday or to certain football rivalries.
I would like to call you as brothers and sisters in Christ to reconsider Thanksgiving and re-elevate it to importance as a holiday by examining where the holiday came from and what it means.
In 1603, King James of England resolved to exercise his authority over both the civil government AND the church in England. He opposed the Puritans who wanted to bring the Church of England's teachings and practices in line with the Bible. He also opposed the Separatists who wanted to form a church that was independent from the king and the Church of England. These Puritan congregations were ridiculed by their neighbors, harrassed by the police, imprisoned by magistrates, and their writings and sermons were censored. In 1609, a group of pilgrims petitioned to leave England for the religious freedom of Holland. King James refused their request to leave England, so they escaped in secret. Some were arrested while crossing the border.
These English Puritans considered themselves "pilgrims," wanderers in a foreign land, and after a dozen years in Holland, they decided to attempt the journey to the New World. Reasons they gave for this included a desire to get away from harmful influences on their children and also a desire to “advanc[e] the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remoter parts of the world.”
This involved selling themselves as indentured servants for 7 years and suffering 65 days of cold, wet, rough sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in the overcrowded Mayflower ship before they finally reached Cape Cod. There was the danger of fire on the wooden ship, so food had to be eaten cold. Many passengers became sick and one person died by the time land was sighted on November 10th. Upon dropping anchor, they all fell on their knees thanking God.
However, their troubles were just beginning. No housing awaited them; there was no reception party, and no physicians or medical facilities existed. There were not even any stores. The men drew up a constitution, called the Mayflower Compact, introducing a measure of order, and they decided to settle at Plymouth, where there was an excellent harbor. A large brook offered a resource for fish. The Pilgrim’s biggest concern, however was attacks from the native peoples. Then the cold winter hit. Snow and sleet were exceptionally heavy, making the construction of the new settlement very difficult. Hunger and disease struck the group. At one point, only six people were well enough to help the sick and the dying. By March 1621, not even a year after arriving, only 51 of the original 102 remained alive.
As the weather began to warm and health began to improve, a remarkable event took place on March 16. An Indian brave walked into the Plymouth settlement and called out - in English! “Hello. Do you have any beer?” His name was Samoset. He had learned some English from some fishermen. Samoset returned later with another native man named Squanto, who had actually travelled to England! It was Squanto who taught the Pilgrims how to tap maple trees for syrup, how to grow corn (a grain not commonly known in England), how to fish the waters, and how to catch game – including the wild turkey which was not found in Europe.
The harvest that year was very successful, and by October, the Pilgrims found themselves with enough food to put away for the winter. There was the corn, fruits and vegetables, fish to be packed in salt, and meat to be cured over smoky fires. God had taken care of them, and it was time to celebrate. They invited Squanto and his people to join them, so chief Massasoit and 90 braves also came to the three-day celebration. They played games, ran races, marched and played drums. The Indians demonstrated their skills with the bow and arrow, and the Pilgrims demonstrated their musket skills. What a great time of worship, feasting, and merrymaking that was!
Most young Americans nowadays have either heard a distorted version of this history which paints the Puritans as bad-guys, or perhaps they haven’t heard it at all, but the heroism of our Puritan forefathers and the works of God that set the course of our nation are worth telling again and again. However, the Puritans were opposed to state holidays, I think mostly as a reaction against the Roman and Anglican churches that invented so many hundreds of holidays that they became man-centered and meaningless. We have to look beyond the Pilgrims for the establishment of Thanksgiving as a holiday. The tradition of a national holiday of giving thanks to God on the last Thursday of November was actually established by:
“BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A PROCLAMATION
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:
“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.”1
However, I have discovered a Presidential proclamation that well pre-dates Lincoln’s, namely George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation, given during his first year as President:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; ... a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safely and happiness:
“Now, ... I do ... assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; ...
“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; ... to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best....”
You can see that Lincoln modeled much of his proclamation off of Washington’s, but once again, as a nation, America gave thanks to God for His supernatural intervention in our war for independence in delivering us from the lawless oppression and horrific acts of terrorism committed by the King of England and his mercenary soldiers. But such proclamations by civil government in America were not uncommon even earlier when America was just colonies.
For instance, on June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown, Mass. proclaimed:
“The Holy God having, by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present War with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgements he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our towns from Desolation threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people; as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, [but] lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions:
“The Council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God's Afflictions, have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being persuaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer up our bodies and souls as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ."
The earliest proclamation I have been able to discover, however, came in the third year of the Pilgrims’ Plymouth colony, after a famine in which a lack of rain was leaving the crops dying in the fields. Governor Bradford ordered a day of fasting and prayer, and it was soon thereafter that the rain came. To celebrate, November 29th of that year was proclaimed a day of thanksgiving:
"Inasmuch as the great Father hath given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and hath made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He hath protected us from the ravages of the savages, hath spared us from pestilence and disease, hath granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings."
But it goes back even further than that! The very first proclamation I could find in history came about three thousand years before the Pilgrms. The calendar system which God handed down to the Jews through Moses included instructions for the equivalent of what we call Thanksgiving. I believe that the Feast of Booths [also called Succoth, which is the Hebrew word for “Booths”] is the holiday after which the Godly leaders in our country’s history patterned Thanksgiving. Note that it was held after harvest and included elements of feasting, thanksgiving, and remembrance of God’s deliverance, and the invitation of foreigners.
Leviticus 23:33-43 Again Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, this shall be the Feast of the Booths seven days for Yahweh. During the first day there shall be a holy conference; y’all may not do any service-related work. Seven days y’all must offer a burnt-offering to Yahweh. [Then] on the eighth day there shall be a holy conference for y’all, and y’all shall offer a burnt-offering to Yahweh... 40 Now, on the first day you must take for yourselves the produce of ornamental trees: palm fronds and leafy tree branches and stream-willows, and y’all must rejoice before the face of Yahweh your God seven days, and y’all must celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh seven days during the year. It is a lasting statute for your generations; y’all must celebrate it during the seventh month. Y’all must reside in the booths seven days. Everyone who is a native in Israel must reside in the booths in order that your generations will know that it was in booths that I caused the children of Israel to reside when I caused them to go out from the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh y’all’s God!’” (NAW)
Later on, as Moses’ life drew to a close and he re-stated the law for the people of Israel, he said in Deut. 16:13-15 "You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.” Skip to Deut. 31:10ff: "At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess." (ESV)
Although we don’t give much consideration to it in modern Christianity, Succoth, or the Feast of Booths was a very special event in the Old Testament. I want to go to three more passages in Scripture which show how very special this feast is even moving beyond the O.T. into the New:
(Neh. 7:73-8:18)
John 7:2 Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand... after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private…. [Jesus then began teaching in the temple.] (37) On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. (38) Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" (ESV)
Jesus died and was resurrected around Passover, the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and started the church, so that leaves Succoth open to represent another major event in redemptive history, the coming of Christ and His perfected kingdom. I’m not going so far as to predict the date of the coming Christ, but I do see the Feast of Booths as a shadow (Heb 10:1) which will be ultimately fulfilled in the second coming. It was at Succoth that Jesus revealed Himself in the temple as we saw in the Gospel of John, and the prophet Zechariah pictures the return of Christ and the peace of heaven in terms of the Feast of Booths:
Zechariah 14:1-21 Behold, a day is coming… (5b) Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. (6) On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. (7) And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. (8) On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. (9) And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one. (10) The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses. (11) And it shall be inhabited, for there shall never again be a decree of utter destruction. Jerusalem shall dwell in security... (v.16) Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths… (ESV)
If Succoth was one of the three main religious festivals of Israel,
if godly men like Ezra and Nehemiah reinstituted Succoth after the Babylonian exile,
if Jesus Himself didn’t miss it when He was on earth,
and if Succoth is related to the coming of Christ and heaven,
then we must see Succoth as an important part of the Bible and seek to understand and apply its meaning today. And I think the Thanksgiving holiday gives us the perfect opportunity!
This Thanksgiving, be sure to offer thanks
to God.
Men, we
must be the leaders in this, just as it says in Deut 16:16 that it
was the males who were to take the initiative in observing this
feast.
The
Bible speaks of several ways to offer thanks:
Singing
– Psalm 30:11-12 “You
changed my mourning into a circle-dance for me! You untied my
sack-cloth and girded me with happiness, in order that what has been
glorified may make music for You and not sit still. Yahweh my God, I
will be responsive to you forever!”
(NAW, cf.
Col. 3:16)
Playing instruments – 1
Chron. 16:41-42 “With them were Heman and Jeduthun and the
rest of those chosen and expressly named to give thanks to the LORD,
for his steadfast love endures forever. (42) Heman and Jeduthun
had trumpets and cymbals for the music and instruments for sacred
song…” (ESV)
Giving
gifts to God – Lev.
7:11-15 “And now this is the instruction regarding the
sacrifice of peace-offerings which he shall offer to Yahweh: If he
is offering it upon an [occasion of] thanksgiving, then he shall
offer on [top of] the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves of
bread mixed with oil and unleavened wafers spread with oil and
loaves of stir-fried fine flour mixed with oil. On [top of] the
cakes he shall offer leavened bread [for] his offering - on [top of]
his sacrifice of thanksgiving peace-offerings. And from it he shall
offer [as] a contribution
to Yahweh one of each offering to the priest who sprinkled the blood
of the peace offerings.
It shall belong to him. Now, the meat from the sacrifice of
thanksgiving of his peace offerings shall be eaten on the day of his
offering; he shall not let [any] of it be left over until
morning.”
Doing works of service –
1Chron.
23:28 “For the duty [of the sons of Levi] was to assist
the sons of Aaron for the service
of the house of the LORD, having the care
of the courts and the chambers, the cleaning
of all that is holy, and any work for the service of the house of
God. Their duty was also to assist with the showbread, the flour for
the grain offering, the wafers of unleavened bread, the baked
offering, the offering mixed with oil, and all measuring
of quantity or size. And they were to stand every morning, thanking
and praising the LORD, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt
offerings were offered to the LORD on Sabbaths, new moons and feast
days, according to the number required of them, regularly before the
LORD. Thus they were to keep charge of the tent of meeting and the
sanctuary, and to attend the sons of Aaron, their brothers, for the
service of the house of the LORD.” (ESV)
Blessing
God - Psalm
145:10 “All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and
all your saints shall bless you!” (ESV)
Boasting
about God’s greatness - Psalm
44:8 “It is in God that we have boasted all the day, and it is
Your name forever that we will praise!” (NAW)
Prayer
at meals – Rom. 14:6 “…The
one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to
God...” (ESV, cf.
the cup of blessing in communion)
Private prayer
– Philippians 4:6 “Do not be
anxious about anything, but rather in everything
by prayer and by petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known before God.” (NAW)
Philemon 1:4 “I thank my God
always when I remember you in my prayers” (ESV)
Recounting
God's deeds – Psalm 75:1 “We
give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We
recount your wondrous deeds.” (ESV)
Thanking
others who have helped you – Romans
16:3-4 “Greet Prisca and Aquila,
my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my
life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the
Gentiles give thanks as well.” (NAW)
May
this Thanksgiving season be one of great thankfulness to God for His
great blessings and a re-dedication to use His bounty to please Him
and serve others.
This Thanksgiving, don’t neglect to
thank God with joy and
gladness.
The
law in Lev. 23:40b “y’all
must rejoice before the face of Yahweh your God”
Nehemiah
also exhorted the Reconstruction Jews when they reinstituted the
feast of Booths, “Let
the joy of the LORD be
your strength.” (8:10)
God’s
people were commanded to be happy during their Thanksgiving feast.
In fact, God threatened to punish them
didn’t do so with joy: Deut.
28:47-48
“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness
and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things,
therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send
against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking
everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has
destroyed you.” (ESV)
God
doesn’t want you to merely go through the motions of
thanksgiving, but to have that attitude
in your heart which is filled with genuine delight in all that God
has done. What can you do to set the
hearts of your household toward being joyful and genuinely thankful
to God? Brothers, don’t just show
up to eat the turkey; it takes some
thinking-ahead to build up excitement over something good like
this.
This Thanksgiving, remember the Biblical
foundation of your blessing
As
the Jews came together with their harvest bounty in Jerusalem to
celebrate Succoth, God pointed them to the source of all their
blessings by making the harvest festival the special time in which
the law was read. The
first five books of the Bible were read out loud to the Israelites
every seven years at Succoth.
Deut.
31:10-13
“At
the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of
release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear
before the LORD your God at the place that He will choose, you shall
read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the
people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your
towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and
be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children,
who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God”
(ESV)
Take
the time to read the Bible out loud, then. Are there any little
children or visitors you could read it to so that they may learn to
fear God?
This Thanksgiving, remember where you came from
Lev.
23:42-43
“Y’all
must reside in the booths seven days. Everyone who is a native in
Israel must reside in the booths 43 in order that your generations
will know that it was in booths that I caused the children of Israel
to reside when I caused them to go out from the land of Egypt. I am
Yahweh y’all’s God!” (NAW)
When
Israel came together to celebrate their present
blessings, God pointed them back to the time when they had nothing,
when they were slaves trying to escape from Egypt, camping in
makeshift shelters/tents/booths
in the desert with little more than the clothes on their back. As
soon as we forget where we came from we will have a hard time being
thankful. When we forget, we can start thinking of God’s
blessings as things we are entitled
to, as though we deserve
them. So this Thanksgiving, take the time to remember what it was
like in the deserts of the history of your life. The Pilgrims
came out of the context of persecution from churches gone bad, from
lawless kings, and from careless, hypocritical culture. They
won their goal in America at great sacrifice, as half of them died
in the attempt. Let us then praise God for the freedom we enjoy as a
result of their sacrifice, and ask Him to preserve it for our
children and grandchildren.
1Washington, 20 October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the 89th, Abraham Lincoln