Drivers on I-35 were confronted with a great holiday inquiry: “Thanksgiving to Whom?” On Thanksgiving we’re supposed to be thankful, but why? Who or what are we supposed to thank on this holiday? When we get together with our families and say: “I am so thankful for ____.” Where is our thanksgiving pointed? Thankful to the cosmic energy? Thankful to the kindness of impersonal fate? Thanksgiving to our hard work that ascertained all those blessings?
Thanksgiving to whom?
The big banner that stretched across the top of my church building, Bethlehem Baptist, begged an answer: thanksgiving to God. Apart from a beneficent, personal, knowable, providential Creator, we only have ourselves to thank, which makes Thanksgiving awfully narcissistic. Or with faith in God in steep decline, we could opt for fate, but that’s awfully irrational, as fate isn’t personal or providential, it’s impersonal and deterministic.
Thanksgiving, the act and the holiday, require a Giver to whom we can give our thanks. And in directing our thanks to our Creator, we settle into the satisfaction of being a created person designed to thank and praise. Thanksgiving to whom? Thanksgiving to God.
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! – Psalm 95.1-6