In the 17th Century, there was a German pastor named Martin Rinkart who spent almost his entire ministry during the Thirty Years’ War in a town on the border between the two sides. They were very much in the middle of the conflict, as the two sides went back and forth right over them. They had to quarter troops, and the battles were going on near them with the interruption of commerce that it created. It was a very difficult and challenging time. To make matters worse, near the end of the conflict, the town also experienced a famine and a plague. During that famine and plague year there were four pastors in the town. Three of them either fled or died, leaving Martin by himself to do all the funerals. He was doing up to fifty funerals a day, approximately four thousand that year. For context, at St. Mary’s we do about a dozen funerals over the course of a year. Four thousand funerals seem unimaginable to me. One of the funerals he did that year was for his wife. Needless to say, that was a very difficult, grief filled year for Martin.
At some point, after that year was over, some people say it was right at the end of it, others say it was a few years later, scholars can’t quite pin down when he did this, but he sat down to write a hymn. The hymn begins like this:
Now thank we all our God
with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers' arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.
Martin knew that even in the midst of so much difficulty, so much sorrow, there were still things for which he could offer gratitude. He knew that the source of all the gifts he had in his life was God. Even in the middle of a war, even in the middle of a famine, even in the middle of a plague, even in the death of his wife, he knew there were still things for which he could find gratitude. This is a truth that people have found time and again throughout the years.
Today is Thanksgiving Day, and this very holiday was born in adversity, in difficulty. The beginning of the national yearly celebration of Thanksgiving was 1863. Now there were a lot of local thanksgiving celebrations at various times. There always have been. It is a common cultural experience. There is occasionally a national one. George Washington proclaimed one, but not every President has done so. All these other thanksgiving celebrations were one off events, but this national yearly celebration at the end of November began in 1863 as a Thanksgiving Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. He said that even in the midst of this great war, which was one of the most challenging experiences they had ever faced, there were still things for which we can find gratitude. The crops are pretty good this year, commerce is relatively healthy, the violence has not spilled out beyond the battlefield, the population is growing despite the deaths. There were many things for which they could offer their thanks to God. So he asked everybody to set aside a day in November to do that, and it became a yearly celebration that we are doing today.
It is something we need to do, this year especially. We find ourselves in one of these very difficult challenging years. And yet there are still things for which we can offer our gratitude to God. God continues to shower down love upon us. It is much more difficult to see it when there is so much pain and sorrow and grief, so much fear and anxiety and worry. And yet it is no less true. It is important that we take the time and set aside the time to focus on that.
So, my friends in Christ, I encourage you this day to set aside a little time, not just for feasting, not just for celebrating and relaxing and resting, but set aside some time to name those things for which you are grateful. Take the time to figure it out, name it, and offer up your thanks to God who is showering down love upon you, even in the midst of all that we face.
AMEN
