This thanksgiving I offer you three lists containing five points. First: Why do we give thanks? Second: How do we give thanks? Third: How is it good for us when we give thanks?

Why do we give thanks?
1 – We give thanks particularly at thanksgiving remembering the covenant of God with
Noah and all creation that seedtime and harvest shall not cease while the earth endures.
2 – We give thanks for material provision, that the labour of our hands by God’s grace
has provided what we need to survive and not starve to death.
3 – We give thanks for our heritage, for the faithfulness and foresight of those who went
before us and led us into this land, husbanding it for us.
4 – We give thanks for the pouring forth of God’s Word, that he makes himself known to
us and just as he has prepared a harvest in the dirt he is preparing a harvest in us.
5 – We give thanks that as God was faithful to his covenant with Noah he will be faithful
in his new covenant made in Christ’s blood to gather in a harvest from the nations who
will be saved in Jesus.

How do we give thanks?
1 – We give thanks by saying it. We give thanks by enumerating before God the things
we are thankful for clearly and honestly. Counting our blessings and saying thank you.
2 – We give thanks not just with our lips but with our hearts feeling gratitude for what
Almighty God has given us in the generation before us, in this harvest, in Christ Jesus. I know we can not force ourselves to feel anything, but try. We laud his holy name and render to him joy for he has been good to us, far better than we deserve.
3 – We give thanks not just by saying it, not just by feeling it, but in offering to God the
worship that he commands. We worship him this day in word and sacrament not
according to our designs but according to his ordinance. We keep the Supper that he
commanded called the Eucharist or the Great Thanksgiving and we commit ourselves to
the public reading of scripture. We eat this bread trusting that it will raise us to an eternal
life and so we give thanks to God.
4 – We give thanks by looking to him and trusting him who has led us so far to lead us
further up and further in.
5 – We give thanks by zealously singing praises of thanksgiving to him who has given us
reason to be thankful.

Even in giving thanks how are we receiving the benefit?
1- Do not think that we give thanks for God’s benefit but for ours. This is what we were
made for – we were made to give thanks to God. In giving thanks to God we are more
who we are supposed to be, in so doing we discover him and find ourselves.
2 – In giving thanks we interrupt longings, cravings and complaining which are spiritually
dangerous to us. It is an interruption of what we ought not be with what we were made to
be.
3 – In giving thanks we stop being miserable and we are able to have a peace and a joy
that we for our own evil inclinations otherwise run away from.
4 – In giving thanks according to Christ’s holy ordinance we receive scripture read to us,
God’s Word planted in us, it will not return to him empty again but will work in the faithful
that which is pleasing to our heavenly Father.
5 – Being fed with Christ in the Eucharist we receive not only a feast of Turkey, which we
should do, but a feast of his own body and passion such that we are fed with the life that
makes us to endure to eternal life.

Jesus, give us this bread, and make us truly thankful. Amen.