Episode 11: The Thanksgiving Show

Readings:

Psalm 100
Isaiah 12:1-6
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 17:11-19

Sermon:

Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!
The Book of Psalms 31:19

Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Terrible, vengeful, unforgiving, full of wrath...

How...

How is it possible to see God in any other light? In any other way?

Pain, sorrow, hardship, suffering...

We toil day and night in a sinful world living amidst our own inadequacies, our own inabilities. We struggle and fight for everything we have and everything we dream of, given small comforts, and insignificant cliches that are whispered to us in our darkest of hours. Words easier said than done, lessons easier taught than learned.

And amidst it all divine judgement that seems to hang over our heads, punishing us in this life for the sins of our fathers and threatening us with hell for all of eternity in the next for our own.

We read the stories of Job, suffering needlessly, the eyes of a seemingly indifferent God turned to him, the stories of Isaiah struggling against the sins of his people, the cities and towns of Isreal fallen to their enemies, the wrath and anger of God turned to them, or the stories of Noah as those flood waters raised, the anguished cries of the condemned reaching up for mercy knowing their time is at hand. It's hard... it's hard not to see God as terrible or vengeful, perhaps even spiteful and petty.

Even in our own lives...

Our days are long and our labors full of hardship. The struggles, they may not be the same as the struggles of Job or Isaiah or Noah or Moses, and yet they wear at us, they try at our very being and we come to believe that, at times, they will overtake us. And why? What for? Because generations before Adam watched as Eve took of that fruit and then, believing he could be as God, bite into it, trying to recreate the Lord in his own image?

Why?

We question and trying to understand God as we understand ourselves, we too recreate Him in our own image, attaching our thoughts and our behavior, who we are and how we see the world to Him and His divine plan...

Yet those... those who see God as angry or full of wrath and vengeance... they do not see Him rightly, nor do they do Him justice. Rather they see Him as if the sun and all of its warmth was blocked by the long, cold, drawn night, that chills us to the bone. They see him as if a veil were drawn across their face, clouding the eyes as if to show forth nothing more than a blur, the shadow of those former things that we had, when we looked upon the world with newness of eyes, seen so clearly.

But God... God must be mercy.... God is nothing if He is not mercy...

If we know that Christ is our redeemer, if we cling to that faith that tells us that He is our savior then truly Immanuel... God is with us and that God... that God is love... A God that sees us for who we are, not who we long to be, a God who sees us for all that is in us and judges us not for our iniquities that tries to capture us, but for the righteousness that has set us free. To look upon Him in that faith is perhaps not to understand all things of this world or in this world but it is to understand that it is through Him that we are saved and that the hardships and struggles of this world are nothing compared to the joy and the peace that we are to find through Him.

Is there anything... anything at all that we may find that blesses our lives and gives us more to be thankful for than that faith that, through His Spirit, we are called to?

In these days where we celebrate all that we have been given, all that has been offered to sustain us, it isn't unusual to find our souls under attack, to find our spirits under seige from a powerful, old enemy, that raises our sins, that raises our hardships, that raises our iniquities and draws our minds to those places. But as he does, there we must cling to those blessings we have, not just on one day, but through all the days of our lives. Even in our hardship and struggle we must kneel in humble submission and pray our prayers of thanksgiving, calling out to our Redeemer, I am yours, I am in your hands, save me.

In those moments, as the Devil comes to us and seeks wreck havoc upon our souls, saying that we are not worthy, that we deserve, we have earned the condemnation and wrath and the vengence of the Lord, we can look Him straight in the eyes, through all the strength of the Holy Spirit, and say This I know... This I know with all of my heart and all of my soul... I know my sins are great and my troubles many. And yet what... what of it? For in all that I am thankful for there is one thing that I raise up every prayer of humble thanksgiving for with all of my strength and all of my courage, there is one thing that is the delight of my soul and the peace of my spirit and for that I shall always be thankful, come whatever may, for I know of one who suffered living that perfect life I could not. I know of one who died on a lonely cross, the atonement I could not offer, the price I could pay, and in God's mercy, in God's love it was a sacrifice made that I might live and find my reward, if not in this life then in the next.

There, in the perfect redemption of Jesus Christ, I shall fear and love the Lord my God, not in terror, not with viels over my eyes or darkness clouding my vision, but with a deep and abiding adoration for all that has been given for me. Where God is, where Christ is Crucificied, there I will be also, come what may, come what must.

There I will raise myself in thanksgiving all the days of my life, building my foundation on that sure footing, taking to that refuge for the lost.

Now the peace of the Lord that transcends all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting. Amen.