Festival of Thanksgiving

3-3-2013

Pastor Lester Priebbenow

"Ah, that's something; and I see it every day!"

Psalm 145:1-7

1 I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
5 They will speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

Speaking of thanksgiving, Deidre and I continue to be thankful for the amazing opportunity

that we had to travel and experience many new and different things toward the end of last year. People often ask us what the highlight of our trip was. That's a difficult question to answer because almost around every corner, on every day there were highlights: impressive buildings, breathtaking scenery, experiences of history, culture, colour, costume, and cuisine.

I have noticed something since we have come home. We have a renewed appreciation of the beauty in our own surroundings, even noticing some things for the first – the buildings, scenery, history, culture, colour, costumes, and cuisine of this little patch of the world where we live our everyday lives.

Upon reflection, we realize just how easy it is to take for granted the gifts of God in our everyday lives. God's goodness and his glory are clearly evident in the things we see and experience, but sometimes the fact that they are a common part of our everyday lives blocks his glory and goodness from our view. We're like the man who lived right next to a popular tourist attraction. While observing crowds of tourists admiring the view he said, "Ah, that's nothing; I see it every day!"

Those two statements should never really be uttered in the same breath. In fact, we should be saying something like, "Ah, that's really something; and I see it every day!" We have to confess, however, that we do so easily take for granted God's amazing work in our everyday lives. We miss the beauty of his creation and the re-creation that occurs every day. We fail to appreciate that his mercies are new every morning because 'great is his faithfulness', We lose the sense of wonder at the cross of Jesus and what it means for us now and eternally. We take for granted what God's forgiveness of sins means for us. We forget what a privilege it is to be accepted as God's very own child. We under-rate or neglect the pleasure and privilege of being in his presence in public worship, at the altar for the Sacrament and in a daily encounter with him through Word and prayer.

What we need is a journey into God's Word to renew our perspective on these everyday events and lead us to thanksgiving. Psalm 145 takes us on such a journey. The psalmist, King David, first takes us on a journey down the road of praise, saying:
1 I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
This journey of praise begins by meditating on, not what God has done, but on who God is. It is, first of all, a journey into the beauty of God's character. It thinks about a God who is prepared to be 'my God', even though he is 'the King' of the universe. It thinks about the 'name' of God which represents all that his is to us and our world.

This journey leads us deeper and deeper into an understanding and appreciation of the character of God, as it did for King David in verse 3 of the psalm:
3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
In God's character, we find that there is not just one highlight, but many. There is a new one to experience every day and around every corner of our lives.

The journey of praise resolves to exalt or 'lift high' God's name and his character in words of prayer, praise and thanksgiving; to praise and extol that name (talk about it favourably) every day and forever and ever. It is a journey well worth taking!

The journey into God's word takes us on a guided tour of the beautiful 'temple' of God's presence and into the presence of others who have experienced the wonder of God's awesome name and his greatness. It leads us to join our praise for who he is, with thanksgiving for what he has done. In Psalm 100, King David also writes: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name (Ps. 100:4).

The journey into God's word and worship leads us to discover and experience some of the amazing history of God's mighty works in which his majesty has been made known throughout the ages. It leads us into the hands-on experience of making those mighty works of God known to the next generation, as verses 4 to 6 of the psalm declare:
4 One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
5 They will speak of the glorious splendour of your
Majesty...
6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,

When we appreciate those mighty works of God's majesty, we cannot help by carry them back into our everyday lives, to also be part of a generation of people who commend them to one another, who tell of them (an intentional act) and speak of them (a more casual, spontaneous act).
The journey into the amazing history of God's mighty acts, as revealed in the Bible, brings about two personal responses from David – and hopefully, also from us.

First, it takes us on a journey of meditation, as it did for King David in verse 5 of the psalm:
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
It leads us to think about (meditate on) God's wonderful works and to appreciate, all the more, the mighty works of God in our daily lives.

Second, it takes us on a journey of proclamation. David continues:
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
We can't help but tell others about all the great things God does for us every day of our lives.

The journey into God's character, his name, his greatness, his majesty, his glorious splendour, his awesome and wonderful works, and his great deeds takes us to another amazing place. This is the place where we can celebrate God's goodness for what it really is, as verse 7 of David's psalm declares:
7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

Each person and each generation who hears and meditates on these things will have many things to celebrate in their daily lives - gifts of creation and gifts of salvation – all of which come from God's abundant goodness and his perfect righteousness. These gifts lead us into the journey of praise which reflects on God's abundant goodness and righteousness; which responds in celebration and song, and in doing so also reinforces our thankfulness.

Now we are ready to go back into our everyday lives and mundane duties armed with renewed appreciation, thankfulness and praise for all that God has done; to recognize, as Luther did in his explanation of the first part of the Creed, God's gifts of: body and soul, mind and senses, abilities, daily care, food, clothes, home, family, daily work, money, protection from danger, safety in times of trouble, his undeserved mercy and all the things we need from day to day; so as to conclude with Luther: All I can do is thank, praise, serve, and obey Him.

Or to change the words of that man we spoke about earlier so that we can say of God's mighty works: "Ah, that's really something; and I see it every day!"