In a year in which very little has been normal, the arrival of Thanksgiving this week provides a calming “reset” to a turbulent and uncertain time in our country.
Thanksgiving is considered a uniquely American holiday. First celebrated in 1621 when the Wampanoags and the Plymouth colonists joined to share an autumn feast, the event recognized the successful harvest that year and gave thanks to God for His blessings. The Pilgrims had endured a harsh winter during which an epidemic had swept through their colony, killing nearly half the original group that had come in 1620 to the New World.
Aren’t we thankful the epidemic we’re seeing 400 years later isn’t anywhere near that magnitude?
In 1789, after the nation won its independence from England and elected its first president under the newly written Constitution, George Washington declared Nov. 26 that year to be a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.
Aren’t we thankful that this year on Nov. 26, we can acknowledge “the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording [the American people] an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness,” as Washington said in his proclamation?
When President Abraham Lincoln issued his proclamation to make Thanksgiving an annual national holiday, the United States was in the midst of the traumatic Civil War that had torn the country apart. Many can see the parallels our nation faces now. Yet Lincoln recognized the importance of urging the whole American people “with one heart and one voice” to acknowledge “the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”
“I do invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. … And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also … commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union.”
That’s a petition we all can agree to offer.
Thanksgiving is not about our circumstances, or about how well life has treated us in a given year. It is not about what kinds of food are on the table or how big the dinner celebration is. It is a public recognition that God is the one who created us, who sustains us, and who deals with us in mercy and compassion.
Maybe especially in the whirlwind of wha has been 2020, we need to seek His blessings and be thankful.
