Now Thank We All Our God

Thanksgiving

November 27, 2014

Now Thank We All Our God

†

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A long time ago a war that lasted 30 years swept through central Europe. Armies from many nations fought battle after battle in Germany and the destruction from the battles and their fallout were catastrophic. Imagine all of the conflict of World War II bottled up in Iowa and Illinois for 30 years.

For example, the Lutheran town of Eilenburg was invaded once by the Austrian troops and twice at different times by Swedish soldiers. The armies would pass through and pillage the land. They abuse the people and steal their crops. And the plague killed thousands. It was awful.

During this time of destruction Lutherans suffered terribly. During the war Eilenburg was told by the occupying Swedish army that the town needed to pay a tax of 30,000 thaler, a huge sum in good times. The Lutheran pastor in Eilenburg, Martin Rinkart, went out and pleaded the unreasonable tribute down to 2,000.

Pastor Rinkart was the only pastor in Eilenburg. In 1637 he buried the two other pastors who died from plague; he was left alone even more when his own wife died. Yet surrounded by death and in his grief, clinging to Christ's promise of life through forgiveness Pastor Rinkart praised his merciful Redeemer and wrote this song for his children.

I invite to turn back to Hymn 610 and we'll read Pastor's Rinkart's words of stanza one together.

Now thank we all our God

With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done,

In whom His world rejoices,

Who from our mother's arms

Has blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love

And still is ours today.

We thank our God with everything He has given us: hearts that beat, hands that make, and voices that speak. All the food that sustains our hearts is His. All the wood and dirt and metal we create with is His. Our voices describe things that only exist because He speaks into being. Our mothers are from Him. All these things are ours because He is the maker of heaven and earth.

But all these earthly blessings come and go. Pastor Rinkart and his family and parishioners didn't have enough food; some of our loved ones may not be able to eat easily. Some have good mothers; others don't have moms; and others have bad ones.

But Pastor Rinkart confessed that through the gains and losses of life, one thing remains ours: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We speak stanza two.

Oh, may this bounteous God

Through all our life be near us,

With ever-joyful hearts

And blessed peace to cheer us

And keep us in His grace

And guide us when perplexed

And free us from all ills

In this world and the next.

Jesus' presence is always near us. His presence is real, but He hides Himself from our senses. But as often as we receive the Word of the Lord, we hear His voice that speaks blessed peace that cheers us up and cuts through perplexing situations. We hear His voice that cuts through all the worries that we have and will have until the end. But until then His simple words are so clear and cheerful.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:25-26

How simply He reassures us with ideas we can easily grasp! Birds are great, but you are far more valuable. And when you doubt this, Jesus promises to come to you and speak value into you. In and of yourself, you are worth less than a bird. But Jesus says that He makes you valuable to Him.

And so we speak stanza three.

All praise and thanks to God

The Father now be given,

The Son, and Him who reigns

With them in highest heaven,

The one eternal God,

Whom earth and heav'n adore!

For thus it was, is now,

And shall be evermore.

When these thirty years of war finally ended in 1648, Pastor Rickart's hymn was sung in thanksgiving to Christ for His mercy by the Lutheran survivors of war and plague. They thanked Him for sustaining their trust in His promise of forgiveness and life, even when everything else was taken away.

Today we praise Christ for the same forgiveness and life, but for a different reason. We thank Him that all our earthly abundance has not taken away our trust in Him.

We raise our voices to God with Pastor Rinkart and the Prophet Isaiah:

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness

Isaiah 61:10

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.