“Singing the Faith: Now Thank We All Our God”
1 Thessalonians 5:18

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Thanksgiving Day—November 24, 2016

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  This morning we conclude our fall sermon series “Singing the Faith,” looking at the background and meaning of favorite hymns.  As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, we consider the amazing story behind the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica says about the holiday, which we are celebrating today: “In the United States, Thanksgiving, despite its religious association, often has a distinctly secular flavor.” Thanksgiving is indeed often more about feasts and family gatherings, parades and football, than actually giving thanks to God.

Some in our nation may not feel like giving thanks this year.  After more than a decade we remain at war, with several incidents the past few weeks, in which a large number of young men and women gave their lives in foreign lands.  Many areas of our country have recently been ravaged by floods and hurricanes.  Many individuals and families are struggling financially, and this Thanksgiving Day what is called the “workforce participation rate” is at an all-time low, with a record percentage of our population without employment.

For you, personally, perhaps you are facing circumstances in your own life, which leave you thinking: “What do I have to be thankful for? I just don’t feel very thankful at this stage in my life!”

The Pilgrims, the first settlers in America, arrived in Massachusetts on the Mayflower in December, 1620.  They made the mistake of landing in the middle of winter, without provisions or shelter.  Within a month, 10 out of the original 17 fathers and husbands in the colony had died.  A few months later, only four of the wives and mothers out of those first 17 couples were still alive.  By the spring thaw, almost half of the pilgrims had died.  Their suffering was horrible, their circumstances couldn’t have been any worse.  And, yet, a few months later, when they had a good harvest, the survivors celebrated and gave thanks to God.

Fifteen years after that first Thanksgiving celebration in the New World, back in the Old World, another man gave the most astounding thanks in the midst of the most dismal circumstances.  Martin Rinckart was a Lutheran pastor and accomplished musician in Germany in the early 1600’s, and author of the words:

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.

You might think that those words were written by a very happy, well-blessed, satisfied person. A person for whom life was going rather easy. 

But, it was a time of terrible devastation known as the Thirty Years War.  Rinckart was the pastor in his hometown of Eilenburg.  Because it was a walled city, it became a last refuge for the wounded and war weary, as the enemy army surrounded the city and cut it off.  Along with the thousands of refugees who took shelter behind the city walls came starvation, as they ran out of food in the besieged city.  Along with the wounded came sickness, and, then, the dreaded Plague.

Thousands died, including every pastor except Martin Rinckart. Left alone as the last pastor in the city, he comforted the dying and often conducted forty to fifty funerals a day, in one year burying over 5,000 people.  Because Eilenburg was his hometown, many of them were not only his parishioners, but also his old friends and relatives.  Finally, he conducted the funeral for his own wife.  And, then, he went home to the empty parsonage,  sat down at his desk, and wrote: “Now thank we all our God . . .”

St. Paul writes in 1st Thessalonians, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  How could the Pilgrims celebrate the first Thanksgiving after experiencing such misery and loss?  How could Pastor Rinckart write such thankful, joy-filled words in the midst of such devastation, death and disaster, even after conducting his own wife’s funeral?  How can you, like them, “give thanks in all circumstances”?

St. Paul gives us the answer in Philippians: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

That is how the Pilgrims and Pastor Rinckart could give thanks even in their struggles and sorrow: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Psalm 121 says, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help.”  The Pilgrims and Pastor Rinckart lifted up their eyes above and beyond their immediate circumstances.  Even in the most trying circumstances, they did not doubt God’s love for them, because they lifted up their eyes to the cross.  St. Paul says in Romans, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  St. John puts it this way: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we would live through him. . .  he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation . . .  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  When your life is a sorrowful struggle, lift up your eyes above and beyond your struggles to the cross of Christ, and God’s assurance that by his suffering, death and resurrection, your sins are all forgiven, and you will rise to eternal life.

This perspective is expressed in the second stanza of Pastor Rinckart’s hymn: 

And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills, in this world and the next.

With these words, Pastor Rinckart tells us that his perspective goes above and beyond this life, and its sorrows, struggles and disappointments. His perspective goes beyond the suffering and death of his parishioners.  His perspective goes beyond even his own grief over his wife’s death, and into the eternity of heaven. That perspective continues in the third stanza:

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 heaven adore;

For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

St. Paul puts it this way in 2nd Corinthians: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are preparing us for an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

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.