Thanksgiving Day – November 26, 2009

^{Genesis 1:31} God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Did you listen carefully to the three lessons read for this Thanksgiving morning? I pray that you did! I pray that our familiarity with them did not blind us to the powerful truths expressed within. In fact, having listened carefully to them, what three words would you use to describe them? Maybe the words, “Praise the LORD,” as the Psalm writer of Psalm 104 exclaimed. Maybe you could use, “absolutely, incredibly amazing.” Well, these are the three that I came up with - God is good! Now, I imagine some might say it is too weak a statement, thinking that the word “good” doesn’t do God justice, but for our purposes this morning, on yet another year when we gather together on a Thanksgiving Day, what more simple words could we find than those that simply state what we are privileged to know and believe: God is good! Now, allow God’s Word to tell again why this is true. We start with the words of our first lesson.

In many ways one could call these verses the wide angled view of creation, as it captures the moment it all began until the day our Almighty God was done. Yet, with the hundreds of times that you have heard or read these words, have you ever taken time to just let it all sink in. There is so much packed into these 34 verses; so much packed into these 7, 24 hour, normal days. For example, just imagine how powerfully almighty God is. All it took was his word, “Let there be…,” and it happened. Amazing! We can’t even begin to comprehend the outstanding, unthinkable, awesome power of the Almighty. And doesn’t it stand to reason then, that if our God is able to call into existence everything we see and know, that we can be certain that with God nothing is impossible. That has tremendous relevance to our life! That has incredible impact on the way we look at God’s promises.

Still, there’s more! Just consider how indescribably wise he is. Instead of having to create hundreds of thousands of the same thing right away, he gave his creation the ability to reproduce according to its kind. But at the same time, he didn’t limit that reproduction to such an extent that there couldn’t be different breeds of the same animal. Or consider the invisible things that are essential for life: oxygen, gravity, the process of photosynthesis, nutrients natural to soil to enable growth, or gestation. Just consider how, as Professor Jeske writes in the book we are studying on Wednesday evenings, “He arranged it that when a microscopic particle of matter from a father’s body meets a microscopic particle from a mother’s body, a baby is conceived. And 40 days later, that miniature human being has a heartbeat, fingerprints, and brain waves.” And that that child should grow, being fed only through one umbilical cord, and 40 weeks later be ready to enter the world. Who could of thought of that? Only God! It was God who thought of it all. It was God who called it all into being. Yes, even the raw materials of the earth so that one day we would have gasoline, motorized vehicles, building materials, and so on.

Yet so often we miss the enormous ramifications this has for our life. Just think, if God is so wise that he could create, from dust no less, the 13 billion neurons in our brain, and enough veins, arteries, and capillaries to circle the world 3-4 times if joined end to end, do you think he knows what he is doing as he controls our world now, even if it looks like it is out of control? And if he can allow the heart, which is no bigger than a fist, to pump the equivalent of 11,000 quarts of blood a day, do you think he knows what he is doing when he allows difficulties in our lives? And if he can give us ears capable of hearing 15,000 different pitches, do you think he knows what he is talking about when he gives us all of the teachings in the Bible, even the difficult ones?

Still, that’s not all! Just contemplate his incredible love, a love that shines exceptionally bright in chapter 2. Now, if chapter 1 of Genesis is the wide angle lens of creation, chapter 2 is the telescopic. It takes our attention and narrows our sight to day six, specifically to the creation of humankind. It is here that we see, in stunning detail, why God in his almighty power and wisdom created such a marvelous world. It was for human beings! It was for people! It was for you and me! Earth was to be the home of God’s highest creation, and God wanted it to be a beautiful home. So, he didn’t just create peaches, but gave bananas, pears, apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and more. He didn’t just create the anteater and the lizard, but gave dogs, cats and birds. He didn’t just create one human being; he created two, and set them apart from the rest of creation by giving them a soul. He gave them rule over creation. He provided a perfect garden home that satisfied their needs for food and meaningful work. He gave them to each other in that blessed institution of marriage. He gave them the gift of companionship, of sexual happiness within that marriage bond, and the gift of children. He did this all for us. Long before we ever thought about God, he was thinking about us and making plans for us. God is good!

Now that we have had this refresher of how good God is, it self-evidently follows, as Luther said, “since everything that we possess as well as everything else in heaven and on earth is daily given, sustained, and preserved by God, therefore we in turn certainly owe it to him to love, praise and thank him without ceasing and, in short, to serve Him wholly and completely, as He requires and enjoins us to do in the Ten Commandments.” How true! And don’t you agree? But why then, do we have such a hard time loving, praising and thanking him without ceasing? Why do we so frequently fail to serve him wholly and completely as he requires? Instead of always praising God for the blessings of children, at times we consider them a burden and decide for God when and if he should bless us with them. Instead of always loving God by loving our spouse and using the blessings of sex within the marriage bond, we degrade this wonderful union and its gifts by pre-marital sex, pornography, living together before marriage and divorce. We have a low view of marriage and speak poorly of it, excusing our actions by blaming the other. Instead of always thanking God by trusting him to take care of us and provide for us, we doubt and literally make ourselves sick with worry. Tell me, if you can, if there are any gifts God has given us – our eyes, ears, hands, mouth, body, soul, money, and property – that we haven’t used to sin in some way.

We use the gift of creation, entertainment, sleep, and sometimes work, to despise the hearing of God’s Word. We use our money, gifts, and abilities to, as only Luther could put it, “proudly strut about, insolently pluming ourselves as though we ourselves had produces our life, wealth, power, honor, and the like…[misusing] the good gifts of God to serve our pride, greed, pleasure, and enjoyment, not even giving God so much as a thought, a word of thanks, or an acknowledgement that he is Lord and Creator.”

Why, why do we do this to the one that did everything for us? Well, we know the answer to that, don’t we? It’s found in the sad facts revealed to us in Genesis chapter 3. We know them well, don’t we, but we need to smell the stink of sin again so that we realize our sins are just as serious. We need to taste the anger of God when we disobey so we can be reminded of the hell we deserve. We need to witness the horrific scene of the crime so we can marvel at perhaps the greatest demonstration of his love.

There they were, Adam and Eve, surrounded by that perfect creation: perfectly in tune with God’s will and with the perfect ability to carry it out. God had withheld nothing from them. All they had to do was look around and they would see. But they believed Satan’s lie. They believed that God had kept something from them. They believed that he was being stingy with them. They doubted that God was really as good as he let on to be. So they took some forbidden fruit, thinking then they would finally have everything. And God should have cast them into the flames of hell right then and there for failing to praise, thank, serve and obey Him who had given them everything, even life itself. And if we’re hones, God should banish us to hell who have failed to praise, thank, serve and obey Him in similar ways.

But he didn’t. But he doesn’t. Instead, like Adam and Eve, he calls us to admit that we are terrible sinners, to confess our helplessness, to repent, and then to direct our eyes to the greatest evidence of his love for us. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” And with the light of the New Testament we clearly see the fulfillment of this promise.

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law” (Galatians 4:4,5). And so Jesus came, the only begotten Son of the Father, to clean up the mess we and our first parents made. And there was only one way to do it: do what we couldn’t do, and then suffer all the agony and wrath and horror and punishment and pain and anger that our sins deserved. And he did it, never once slinking back from the task before him. Always swatting away every temptation Satan could hurl at him. Never shying away from the inevitable cross at the end of it all. There he hung, enduring our hell. There he suffered, bearing our agony. There he died, dying our death. Oh the love, the love, the love, the love.

We’re the ones who go astray! But he’s the one who brought us back! We’re the ones who should do the loving! But he’s the one who has loved to the extreme. Now our sin and guilt is paid for. They are buried in the tomb from which he rose. All that whining and complaining because we don’t think God gives us everything we should have – covered in the blood of Christ! All those times we have let Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter preparations dictate how much of God’s Word we will hear instead of God’s Word dictating when we will do the preparations – hurled into the depths of the sea! All those times we’ve gotten on our high horse because we thought we were something, failing to give God his due – gone from us as far as the east is from the west! All those times we are stingy in our offerings, forgetting it is God who has given it all – washed in the blood of Christ! The guilt of all these; the ransom needed for all others – paid in full!

Brothers and sisters…children of God…the crown of God’s creation – today is Thanksgiving. But tomorrow will be too! So was yesterday! So is every day! And we have reason to give thanks. Not only for the beauty of creation, the hands with which to work, marriage and children, but for our Savior Jesus Christ. Please, please, don’t let a day pass, don’t let a moment go by, that your heart isn’t filled with the thanksgiving and thanksliving which our God, who is so good, is worthy and deserving of. Amen.