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