| Originally Broadcast Nov 2001The fourth Thursday in | | | | with which the Separatists would have been very |
| November is called Thanksgiving Day in the USA. | | | | familiar. In their native England, days of feasting and |
| Whether you live here or not, are you going through a | | | | leisure commonly followed the harvest. Earlier such |
| tough time this Thanksgiving? Aside from all the | | | | harvest festivals include ancient Greek Thesmophoria, |
| international unrest, are you finding it hard to find | | | | ancient Roman Cerealia, and the Jewish Sukkot.Not to |
| anything to be thankful about in the midst of your own | | | | imply that the 1621 feast had more in common with |
| life? If so, maybe this message will minister to you.Did | | | | pagan festivals than with their first Christian |
| you know it wasn't until the American Civil War | | | | Thanksgiving, which they observed in 1623 to |
| (1861-1865) that Congress officially recognized | | | | celebrate the now infamous crop-saving rainfall, after |
| Thanksgiving Day? Even though it all began over 200 | | | | apparently skipping the occasion in 1622. From the |
| years earlier in the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, | | | | Separatist perspective, everything fell within the |
| 1621. The Separatists (it was much later when they | | | | bounds of faith. EVERYTHING. As Leland Ryken |
| became known as "Pilgrims"), who founded Plymouth | | | | wrote in "Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really |
| Colony in 1620, ignored most holidays. In fact, they | | | | Were": "Puritanism was impelled by the insight that all |
| recognized only three: the weekly Sabbath, the Day of | | | | of life is God's. The Puritans lived simultaneously in two |
| Humiliation and Fasting, and the Day of Thanksgiving | | | | worlds--the invisible spiritual world and the physical |
| and Praise. The latter two were not set on the | | | | world of earthly existence. For the Puritans, both |
| calendar but were proclaimed in response to God's | | | | worlds were equally real, and there was no cleavage |
| perceived favor or disfavor. Colonial life was so tied to | | | | of life into sacred and secular. All of life was sacred."In |
| the harvest cycle that fasting days were most often | | | | simple English, whether you go to church on |
| called in the spring, when there wasn't much to eat | | | | Thanksgiving or not, the day can be seasoned with |
| anyway. Feast days often accompanied the autumn | | | | what Puritan Richard Baxter called "a drop of glory." |
| harvest. Both observances occurred on weekdays, | | | | For that matter, EVERY day can be seasoned in this |
| usually the day of special sermons (known as Lecture | | | | way. As Paul and King David put it, "The earth is the |
| Day), which was on a Thursday in Plymouth | | | | Lord's, and everything in it" (Psalm 24:1, 1 |
| Colony.Their first dreadful winter in Massachusetts had | | | | Cor.10:26).After their first few traditional celebrations of |
| killed about half the members of the colony. But new | | | | Thanksgiving, the custom of such a day soon spread |
| hope arose in the summer of 1621. The settlers | | | | to other colonies, becoming a time of celebrating the |
| expected a good corn harvest, despite poor crops of | | | | harvest. In 1777, the Continental Congress proclaimed a |
| peas, wheat, and barley. Thus, in early autumn, | | | | national day of Thanksgiving after the American |
| governor William Bradford arranged a harvest festival | | | | Revolution victory at the Battle of Saratoga, an |
| to give thanks to God for the progress the colony had | | | | important battle which proved to the world that |
| made.The festival lasted three days. The surviving | | | | America could stand toe-to-toe with England, who had |
| Separatists, numbering about 50, feasted with 90 | | | | the greatest army in the world at that time. Notice it |
| members of the Wampanoag Indians who brought | | | | was a holiday motivated by armed conflict. Twelve |
| gifts of food as a goodwill gesture. It was not an | | | | years later, George Washington proclaimed another |
| "official" day of thanksgiving. In the only surviving | | | | national day of Thanksgiving in honor of the ratification |
| firsthand account of the meal, Edward Winslow | | | | of the Constitution and requested that the Congress |
| described it this way: "Our harvest being gotten in, our | | | | finally establish it as an annual event. They declined. So, |
| governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might | | | | it would be another 100 years, after the nation's bloody |
| after a special manner rejoice together after we had | | | | Civil War, before President Abraham Lincoln would |
| gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day | | | | proclaim that the last Thursday in November would |
| killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served | | | | become Thanksgiving Day. That was 1865, the year |
| the company almost a week. At which time, among | | | | the Civil War ended. Surprisingly, it took another 40 |
| other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the | | | | years, the early 1900s, before the tradition really caught |
| Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their | | | | on. See, Lincoln's official Thanksgiving was sanctioned |
| greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom | | | | in order to bolster the Union's morale. Southerners |
| for three days we entertained and feasted, and they | | | | boycotted the new holiday, seeing it as an attempt to |
| went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the | | | | impose Northern customs on their conquered |
| plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon | | | | land.Today, Thanksgiving is an annual Rockwellian |
| the captain, and others. And although it be not always | | | | event filled with football, feasting, and family that |
| so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the | | | | causes over 35 million Americans to "head home" for |
| goodness of God, we are so far from want that we | | | | their family feasts. But that's not the historical picture of |
| often wish you partakers of our plenty."The very first | | | | this idealistic holiday. From its inception, it has more |
| Thanksgiving observance in America, two years | | | | often been associated with adversity, bloody, and |
| earlier, was entirely religious and didn't involve anything | | | | difficult times. Before a day of Thanksgiving ever |
| remotely resembling a feast. Sorry, it wasn't the | | | | existed in a place called the United States, the Apostle |
| Pilgrims either. On Dec. 4, 1619, a group of 38 English | | | | Paul, writing from a prison cell and probably knowing |
| settlers arrived at Berkeley Plantation, on the James | | | | that he would soon be killed, wrote to the Philippians, "I |
| River near what is now Charles City, Virginia. The | | | | give thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."Out |
| group's charter required that the day of arrival be | | | | of great suffering have come many glorious |
| observed yearly as a day of thanksgiving to God. | | | | expressions of gratitude such as Paul's over the |
| Captain John Woodleaf held the service of | | | | centuries. One wonders, what motivates Christians to |
| thanksgiving. Here is the section of the Charter of | | | | give thanks at all when a more reasonable response |
| Berkley Plantation which specifies the thanksgiving | | | | would seem to be bitterness and murmuring? Well, |
| service: "Wee ordained that the day of our ships | | | | does not a new baby enter the world only after a time |
| arrival at the place assigned for plantacon on the land | | | | of travail and transition? Does not an expectant couple |
| of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as | | | | prepare a baby's room, and isn't the infant showered |
| a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god." In accordance | | | | with gifts, before he or she ever arrives? We |
| with this 1619 charter, the colonists most likely held | | | | celebrate the good things to come, in faith that the |
| service in 1620 and 1621. The colony was wiped out in | | | | good things WILL come.In the wake of the recent |
| 1622. Thanksgiving was a private event, limited to the | | | | terrorist attacks, the Afghan war, the anthrax scare, |
| Berkeley settlement.For those who see Thanksgiving | | | | the economic turmoil, and the flight 587 crash, in |
| as being more of a religious holiday, where the | | | | keeping with American tradition, we have all the more |
| Separatists, or Pilgrims, were concerned, it wasn't | | | | reason to celebrate Thanksgiving. Let's give thanks, |
| intended to be such, though Separatist leader, William | | | | EXPECTING new life to come as a result of the |
| Bradford wrote in his diary that their voyage across | | | | turmoil that surrounds us today.American or not, |
| the ocean was motivated by "a great hope for | | | | Thanksgiving - giving thanks - in the midst of dark and |
| advancing the kingdom of Christ." Hunting, contests of | | | | troubled times, if nothing else, is in keeping with the |
| skill and strength, and entertainment generally have no | | | | way of the cross ...the CHRISTIAN tradition. Give |
| place in religious observances. However, these were a | | | | thanks at ALL times - even in the midst of your own |
| part of the long tradition of pagan harvest festivals, | | | | trying situation. |