Tomorrow is the day when we, as a nation and a people, take a day to offer our thanks to God. As an American historian, it fascinates and saddens me to see how far this American tradition has come to be celebrated today. For many, Thanksgiving Day means a lot of food, celebrating and fellowshipping with family, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and watching professional football. Last year, we saw stores began to open on Thursday evening as a way to increase their sales. It appears that the last thing on the minds of many Americans is truly demonstrating our thankfulness to the Lord.
Back when I was studying and preparing for my Ph.D., I decided that I wanted to research the early colonial period of our nation. Although I already held a master’s degree, there were (and there still are) areas of basic historical knowledge about our nation that I simply do not know as well as I would like. I began my research by reading the writings of various American historians. Eventually, I began reading the available writings of the early colonists themselves, desiring to learn from their own hand of the life and times that they lived. One thing that began to stand out is that there is a large part of the thanksgiving narrative missing from today’s society. That first thanksgiving celebrated in 1621 and lasted for three days. Not only were there fifty settlers of the Plymouth Colony present, but at least ninety American Indians as well.
We all are aware of the story of how the Pilgrims invited their American Indian guests to not only celebrating a bountiful harvest, but to honor the American Indians who had taught them how to plant pumpkins, corn, squash, beans, and other crops that were largely unknown to the settlers when the arrived on the North American continent. We also understand that they used the opportunity to give thanks to God for providing a truly amazing harvest and for preserving the survivors of the colony. What is not taught is an important part of the thanksgiving story that has somehow been deemed as either not politically correct or not of any historical significance – a trend of telling about this first thanksgiving that began sometime in the early twentieth century. These brave men and women were also using this harvest time celebration as a tool to spread the saving gospel message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Within the psalms written by David, the Holy Spirit led him to write, I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations (Psalms 57:9). These pilgrims were doing just that – they were praising God among the American Indians!
There have been times in the lives of each of God’s children when we are approached by someone who does not know the Lord and are asked a simple question of “why?” Maybe it is because you were honest with a cashier who tried to give you back too much change, or you helped out the person in line at the register that didn’t have the necessary change to make their purchase. Maybe it was taking the time to listen to someone else who was hurting, lonely, or struggling to understand – any of these events is an evangelistic opportunity for us to share our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The pilgrims were doing this very thing with the first thanksgiving. They were demonstrating their thankfulness to the Lord as a means of reaching the American Indians in attendance. They were putting into action the verses, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear (I Peter 3:15), and And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing (Psalms 107:22). When we truly are thankful for the blessings of God and are sincere in our efforts to express our gratitude to Him, it is a testimony to the believer and the unbeliever of the goodness of the Lord.
What has also been forgotten from our nation’s history is that these Pilgrims rejected many of the Calvinist teachings of the Puritans who would later separate themselves to the new colony of Massachusetts Bay. Although the Pilgrims did follow the teachings of Calvin, they rejected the idea that only a certain group of people had been chosen by God to be saved (this was one of the major doctrinal difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans). Instead, they felt that the gospels commanded them to bear witness to all they came across, whether European settler or American Indian, since no one could truly know which people had been preconditioned by the Lord to accept the gospel: And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:5). Because of the seriousness of a want to use this thanksgiving celebration to spread the gospel, the writings of several of the Pilgrim colonists show that the week before the first thanksgiving celebration, the able-bodied men and women (those who were reasonably healthy) fasted every day and prayed every evening not only to thank God for the bountiful harvest, but that they would be able to witness the spreading of the gospel of Christ to the local tribes.
There have been efforts underway to rewrite the account of the first thanksgiving – to reinterpret its purpose so that God becomes nothing more than an afterthought in our modern observation of a day of thanksgiving. Many will point to William Bradford, the Governor of the Plymouth Plantation as the originator of thanksgiving, and will argue that it was a function of the government (state) and not the church (religion). This is a misinterpretation of William Bradford’s position within the Pilgrim community; although he had been the one responsible for drafting the Mayflower Compact, he was also regarded as a religious leader within the Scrooby community as it left England for Holland, and eventually the North American coast. It is the reason the Compact has the word, “stranger” – a recognition that not all aboard the Mayflower were of the same religious views as the Pilgrims. The colony that Bradford was governor of was to be a church/religious based society; what we consider today as civil rights were directly tied to one’s standing within the religious community. The writings from Bradford actually show that the first thanksgiving was seen by him as being an observance for the Pilgrims as described in the Old Testament regarding the Jewish observance of Passover: And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped (Exodus 12:24-27). Bradford intended this period of thanksgiving to be done each year as a celebration of God’s divine provision and a remembrance of what had been done so that we would remember, in each generation afterwards, the bountiful mercy and grace of God.
Starting this thanksgiving, maybe it is time for us to return to the original purposes of this great observance. Maybe it is time that we do as our Pilgrim ancestors did and approach the day with reverence to the Lord. Maybe it is time that we invite the stranger, the orphan, the widow into the fellowship of our home and table to use the feast to share our Christian faith. Maybe it is time to share the history of God’s mercy and grace shown to those early settlers so that the real story of thanksgiving can be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Maybe it is time to set aside the Christmas shopping, football games, and the parades and all the other trappings of the modern-day observance we’ve grown accustomed to and return to a more simpler, more deeper, and more meaningful thanksgiving experience. As I have shared these thoughts today, one verse keeps coming to mind: And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15).
