Pastor's Blog: A Blending of Seasons
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Most folk I know rue the fact that Christmas has continued to creep closer and closer to earlier holidays on the calendar. There once was a day when holidays were kept distinct from one another. We celebrated this holiday this month and that holiday that month. But now, the seasons have run together, particularly the Christmas season, so that you have started to see yuletide decorations go up the day after Halloween!
My concern with this blending of the holidays is that Thanksgiving will get lost in the shuffle. But then someone could argue that when as a society you’ve already coopted Thanksgiving by surrendering to the consumeristic nature of Christmas with the Black Friday phenomenon, what difference does it make? You might as well go ahead and start Christmas preparations even earlier, maybe even back to Labor Day!
Well, let’s not give the prevailing culture any ideas. If “blending” is the reality that we’re consigned to live with in this present day, then let’s at least leverage it to faith’s advantage by contemplating the ways in which we might join Thanksgiving and the days afterward to give our devotion even more substance.
Here’s one suggestion. Normally, we see Thanksgiving Day as a time to reflect on past blessings. At this time of the year we look back and give thanks for all the good that has come our way, all of it from the hands of a most bountiful God. But because of the closeness of Thanksgiving Day this year with the start of Advent on November 29, what might it look like if we also dedicated a few moments this year to looking ahead and being grateful for the blessings that God will be sending our way in the coming days? Then, our anticipation of a more hopeful tomorrow would enable us to develop an even deeper and truer “attitude of gratitude,” one in which our Thanksgiving wouldn’t be consigned to just one day on the calendar but would instead become a way of life that empowers us to get beyond the past and to be more present in this moment and to be hopeful about our future.
That might be an especially faithful exercise, especially for those of us who won’t be gathering with family and friends as in years past out of COVID concerns. Instead of whining about lost opportunities, which will only serve to dilute our Thanksgiving, what might it look like if we use this time to project the better day that is to come, one in which we will be gathered up with a host of the faithful in unbroken fellowship and eternal joy? After all, isn’t that what the season of Advent is meant to encourage? And Thanksgiving is in no way inconsistent with such an aim.
So, think about blending your gratitude with some hope, peace, joy, and love. Perhaps then this year’s Thanksgiving won’t be as gloomy as you are thinking it will be. You will instead redeem it, even as you use it to focus your gratitude on your own redemption, a redemption which in Christ Jesus is ever drawing nigh, which is a focus that will surely keep you eternally grateful.
“Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:10-15)