Thanksgiving – a biblical history with application, plus a wonderful family tradition to share.
The following is something our family
has shared as a tradition for the past
number of years and others have also
enjoyed sharing as well. It's been a
great blessing to believers and nonbelievers alike. Note the tradition of
passing out five kernels of corn (Google
Just Corn for local distributors, find a
feed store or use popcorn). Pass them
out before dinner for everyone to see &
wonder about. After dinner, perhaps
before dessert, read the story below.
Then go around the room, each holding
one kernel as they share something
they’re thankful for. Three turns is
good because it gets past the easy
automatic responses (Before we start, we
all agree we're thankful for family and more
forward from there :). This is well worth
the exercise, especially for non-believers
who’ve never experienced this kind of
gratitude. It really does affect them
personally to hear & participate in this
and it can stimulates a new level of
conversation as everyone eats dessert.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,
and Be Thankful.
(The following was taken from an article published
in the Monterey Herald many years ago, written
by a former local pastor)
The Meaning of Thanksgiving
Perhaps few events in American
life have been as misunderstood as the
origin of our own Thanksgiving.
Typical pictures show charming,
quaintly dressed pilgrims inviting a few
Indian guests to a huge feast with
tables piled high with lots of food. But
that's not what the first American
Thanksgiving was like.
The first official Thanksgiving was a
harvest celebration held by the
pilgrims on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1623.
But that harvest festival was three
years after they had arrived at
Plymouth Rock and celebrated their
first giving of thanks.
The very first observance of
thanksgiving was not a harvest
celebration because there was no
harvest. It was not a time of plenty at
all. Times were very difficult that first
year. At one time, after the Mayflower
landed during that first difficult
winter, there were only seven healthy
colonists out of the 102. The rest
were terribly sick and many had
already died.
Food was so scarce
during that first winter that the individual daily ration of food was down to
five kernels of corn per day. That's
kernels, not whole cobs of corn.
Just five kernels a day! And yet
these pilgrims willingly set aside a day
to give thanks to God. They were
thankful even when the shelves were
bare. Some of you may be aware that
in early New England, and even in
many homes in America today — homes
that preserve the lessons of history —
five kernels of corn are placed at every
plate on Thanksgiving Day as a
reminder of those harsh days of that
first winter.
Even the second year was a disaster
for the pilgrims. In fact, they didn't
even hold a Thanksgiving Day that
year. So what happened between the
second and third winters? At this point
we have to weave in another story, the
story of the American Indian, Squanto.
Squanto was an Indian captured by
Spanish traders in the late 1500s and
sold to an English priest. In England,
he worked for many years serving the
priest, saving money for passage back
to America while at the same time
learning English.
Once he finally arrived back in
America, he found his tribe was gone.
A terrible plague had killed every
member of his tribe. Squanto lived
briefly with a neighboring tribe, and
then he heard of an English village
nearby. He made his way to them and
surprised the pilgrims by speaking to
them in English. He found them in
desperate need, barely having survived
that second winter.
Squanto helped them that spring,
showing them how to plant corn, catch
fish and hunt in the forest. He showed
them how to bury a fish at the foot of
a cornstalk for fertilizer so the harvest
would be much more plentiful. With
his help, they produced abundant food
for the next winter and held a harvest
feast – the first official Thanksgiving.
To the pilgrims, Squanto was one of
God's answers to their prayers. Having
trusted God and expressing thanks in
the hash times, God blessed them now
with abundance.
That is the feast we see pictured.
Yet the first real day of thanksgiving
did not come in a time of abundance.
It came during a time of sickness,
death, want, and hunger.
The first national observance of
Thanksgiving came over 200 years later
on Oct. 3, 1863. President Abraham
Lincoln issued the first national
Thanksgiving proclamation, setting the
last Thursday in November as the day
of observance.
Lincoln wrote these words prior to
proclaiming
the
first
national
observance of Thanksgiving Day: "We
have forgotten the gracious hand
which preserved us in peace, the hand
that multiplied and enriched and
strengthened us. We have vainly
imagined in the deceitfulness of our
hearts that all these blessings were
produced by some superior wisdom and
virtue of our own. Intoxicated with
un-broken success, we have become,
too self-sufficient to feel the
necessity of redeeming grace, too
proud to pray to the God who made
us."
He went on later and added: "In the
midst of Civil War of unequal
magnitude and severity, I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every
part of the United States to set apart
and observe the last Thursday of
November next as a day of thanksgiving & praise to our beneficent
Father."
Some may interpret Thanksgiving's
origin as a day of thanksgiving, not to
God, but to the earthly Indian friends
like Squanto who helped the pilgrims.
Of course we are grateful for Squanto
and the Indians but we cannot change
history. The pilgrims gave thanks to
God perhaps because they understood
and recognized the divine intervention
of God better than many of us do.
Let us remember that the first day
of Thanksgiving was during a time of
famine, and that our first official,
national Thanksgiving Day came during
the darkest hours of the Civil War. At
a time when our country was passing
through the valley of the shadow of
death, there was “Thanksgiving.”
[Is it possible that we, in this
generation are also experiencing
hard times in many different ways?]
Perhaps our forefathers understood
the concept of gratitude in the midst
of hard circumstances better than we
do. And, maybe it's because they knew
the Bible better than some of us.