Do you know about the "years without Thanksgiving?" Last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the First Thanksgiving in 1621. As you know, Thanksgiving has been celebrated in one form or another ever since. You probably also know that Presidents Washington and Lincoln issued famous Thanksgiving Proclamations, in 1789 and 1863 respectively.
But you may not be aware of the "years without Thanksgiving," during which our national leaders refused to publicly acknowledge the gifts of God in the way that both the Pilgrims and George Washington had done. The History Channel explains:
Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country’s fortunes on this day in 1863.
(It's a little ironic to describe the nation as being "based...on the separation of church and state" while discussing Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson coined the phrase, but he would have known - as do you and I - that this phrase appears nowhere in our founding documents).
There was a time period of almost fifty years, then, in which our presidents refused to publicly give thanks. We know that refusing to give thanks is sin (Romas 1:20-22), and it's sad to think that our nation was once unable to do this officially, although of course many individual American families did give thanks every day for their blessings.
Thankfully, Thanksgiving didn't remain in the wilderness forever. You've probably read President Lincoln's famous declaration (actually written by Secretary of State William Seward), which reads in part:
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States...to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that... they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
Oh, how I wish that our modern-day presidents would acknowledge and repent of our "national perverseness and disobedience" instead of the bland and inoffensive pronouncements that they reheat and reissue year after year! Because it seems to be that we, like President Lincoln, are living through a time when understanding and repenting of our sins as a nation will bring great blessings.
We are also, sadly, living under leaders who, like President Jefferson, do not see the true value of thanksgiving - certainly not Thanksgiving with repentance.
I pray you and your family enjoy a blessed, peaceful, ample Thanksgiving. I hope you take time to give thanks not just for the blessings you enjoy personally, but for the blessings God has poured out on the great state of Minnesota, and on this great nation.
Moreover, I hope you will pray with me that the "years without Thanksgiving" would come to an end again - that God would give us better leaders than we deserve, leaders who would lead us not in hubris but in repentance, and not in pride but in...Thanksgiving.
