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This sermon is historically conditioned in two ways. It was delivered on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, 1983. It seeks to put the motif of thanksgiving into the context of the national and world situation of the time.

It also recalls another Thanksgiving season twenty years before when the nation had been plunged into mourning by the assassination of President Kennedy.

The purpose of the sermon is to encourage Christians to be grateful to God at all times, especially in times when a feeling of gratitude may be difficult to express.

While the circumstances recounted for 1983 may not fit later periods in our history, it is safe to say that during almost any Thanksgiving season there are likely to be enough distressing situations in the world to make a sermon such as this appropriate.



It is not always easy to remember where one was or what one was doing on a particular day twenty years ago. But if you are thirty years or older, then I am sure that most of you remember where you were and what you were doing on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, twenty years ago this Tuesday.

I was helping a friend move into a new house. We had a little portable radio playing on an empty shelf. Suddenly the program was interrupted. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. We stopped and listened in stunned silence. The extent of his injuries was not known at the moment. Hope revived a little.

"Maybe it is not so bad. It can't be; it simply can't be."

But soon the ominous announcement came. The president was dead. An assassin's bullet had shattered his brain.

The horror, the grief, the senselessness of it all swept over us. My friend and I abandoned our work and returned to our homes, depressed, sickened, confused, bewildered.

After I had had a little while to try to get things back in focus it dawned on me - "Sunday is the Sunday before Thanksgiving."

I was the full-time pastor of a church in Alabama in 1963, and on Sunday I had planned to read the Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation and preach a Thanksgiving sermon.

Suddenly it all seemed terribly ironic. The President who had called the nation to thanksgiving was now dead, and the nation was plunged into mourning. My Thanksgiving sermon seemed shallow and superficial. What could I say? How could I change the sermon so that it made any kind of sense in circumstances such as this? Wouldn't it be better simply to cancel Thanksgiving and give way to grief, despair, and uncertainty?

I must admit that I do not remember what I did with that Thanksgiving sermon, but we did not cancel Thanksgiving that year.

Now Thanksgiving is upon us again. What is our national mood this time? Perhaps we would not all agree on the answer to that question, but is it a mood of settled tranquility, of calm certainty, of assured peace, of happy unity, with a warm feeling of well--being?

It does not seem so. Ours is a time when a passenger jet with 269 people can be shot out of the sky; when almost 250 of our young Marines are blown to bits while they watch a fratricidal war which seems to have no solution. Superpowers move their nuclear missiles about the face of the earth like grotesque chess pieces. They face each other like two people standing waist deep in gasoline, arguing about parity in firepower because one has twelve matches and the other has only ten.

By this time some of you are probably thinking, "What a gloomy way to begin a Thanksgiving sermon." I agree. But perhaps it is not an entirely incongruous way.

For it may be that against such a somber background Thanksgiving can avoid the danger of shallowness and superficiality. Perhaps it is in times which do not naturally generate a welling up of thankful feeling that we need to seek to recapture a sense of genuine gratitude.

For the Christian attitude of thanksgiving does not depend on circumstances which are always favorable, nor is it based upon a series of uninterrupted victories and increasing triumphs.

The Christian faith is based on and motivated by thankfulness. Our faith and our ethic are grateful responses to God's deed on our behalf. And at the heart of God's deed for us is a cross - the dark clouds of Calvary, the sun blotted out at noonday, the tragic death of One who did not deserve to die.

If we believe that Jesus' death is for us, that the blood shed on the cross cleanses our sin, that his death conquers death, then we live out of gratitude - not to pay a debt we cannot pay, nor to earn a gift we do not deserve, but to express to God our thanks for his inexpressible gift. Therefore, Thanksgiving is not a uniquely American secular holiday. Genuine thanksgiving is deeply theological and characteristically Christian.

If this is true, then we would expect to find in the New Testament evidence of those who recognized the reality of life in this world, but who could give thanks to God in spite of it. There also must be examples of how Christians can, without consciously thinking about it, become sources of thanksgiving and courage for others.

Both such examples are evident in the experience of the apostle Paul. Paul's life was characterized by relentless travel, illness, conflict with those outside the church who had been his colleagues, and conflict within the church with fellow Christians. He endured shipwreck, beatings, stoning, and imprisonment. And yet he was forever thanking God.

A good example is his Letter to the Philippians. He wrote this letter while he was in a Roman prison facing an uncertain future, not knowing whether he would be set free or executed. But the letter literally pulsates with joy. A characteristic line in the letter is the exhortation: "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6--7).

But Paul also had his times of depression and despair. For example, in one of his letters to the Corinthians he could speak of being "so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself" (2 Corinthians 1:8).

But it is on his voyage to Rome, so vividly described by Luke in the last two chapters of Acts, that we see the Paul who lived gratefully and confidently through danger and disaster, and also the Paul who himself received from others that which made him thank God and take courage.

Paul is on his way to Rome by sea to appear before the highest court in the land, the court of Caesar. On the way the ship encounters a violent storm which threatens the very lives of all on board. But through it all Paul is the calm, confident one, giving directions and advice, encouraging the others to eat in the midst of the storm, assuring them that none of them will be lost.

They are shipwrecked on the island of Malta. After being marooned for three months they finally take ship and make their way toward Rome. They land on the coast of Italy and begin the last lap of their journey on foot, going along the famed Appian Way.

One can imagine Paul's thoughts as he draws nearer to the city. It has been a long, difficult voyage. Thus far he has kept up his spirits and the spirits of those who travel with him. But could it be that now near the end of the journey even the spirits of the great apostle Paul should begin to falter?

What awaits him? How will his fellow Jews receive him? He has been received with hostility by them in many other places. He had written a long letter to the Christian community in Rome, but most of them did not know him by sight. What rumors might they have heard about him? Would they be suspicious of him, coming to Rome in chains? And what of Caesar? Who could predict about Caesar? How long would it be before his case was heard? Would the verdict be freedom or death?

Step by step Rome draws nearer. Paul and his companions pass by the many elaborate burial monuments which line the Appian Way. The great city with its multitude of uncertainties looms ahead.

But then something happens which makes all the difference. It is nothing spectacular. No blinding light, no voice from heaven such as Paul saw and heard on the road to Damascus. What happens is so simple as to be hardly worth recording. Or is it so significant that it must be told?

Some of the Christians in Rome hear that Paul is on his way, and they go out to meet him on the road. This is how Luke tells it: "And so we came to Rome. And the brethren there, when they heard of us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them Paul thanked God and took courage" (Acts 28:14b--15).

We can almost feel the relief in Paul's soul, the uplift of his spirit, the thankfulness of his heart. Paul did not have to wait to hear their greeting or their message. Their very coming conveyed their concern, their caring, their acceptance of him. They cared enough to come.

Their coming could not assure that the Jews would not be hostile. Their coming would have no effect on Caesar's court or on the verdict pronounced. But still, "on seeing them Paul thanked God and took courage." This simple scene leads me to express deep thanks against the background of somber anxiety at the beginning of Thanksgiving week, 1983.

Thank God for the Church of Jesus Christ. For it is in the church that we can see others coming to meet us, and therefore thank God and take courage. And it is as a part of the church that we can be those who, hearing of others on the uncertain road, can go out to meet them with care, concern, and acceptance. And when they see us, they can thank God and take courage.

Thank God most of all for Jesus Christ himself. For he hears about us human beings floundering in this world on the road to an uncertain future. And he comes out to meet us. His coming is no casual coming, no pleasant stroll while the dew is still on the roses. His coming in care, concern, and acceptance cost him his life. He knows not only where we have been, but he knows where we are going, for he is already there.

Jesus Christ knows we are on the road, and he comes out to meet us. Therefore, we can thank God and take courage.