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Thanksgiving

Vicar Todd Liefer
November 26, 2009

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of God that engages us today is from Deuteronomy 8. Dear friends in Christ.

The people were restless. They couldn't wait! Here are the people of Israel at the edge of the Promised Land, and they're ready to go in. That's where we are in our text today. The people of Israel are at the bank of the Jordan River, and they can look across the river and see the land God had promised to them. They can SEE it! For years they had heard about it. They heard how green, how large, and how beautiful it was; they heard how there was no end to the milk and honey and food. But now they can see for themselves. And that must have been a beautiful sight for the people of Israel.

But then, Moses comes and just ruins the moment. He starts preaching. Now, the Israelites have to sit through another one of Moses' sermons. And let me tell you, Moses' sermons were never short. No, actually this one this day lasted close to an hour. (So if you you're counting things your thankful for this year, you can say, "At least Vicar's sermon didn't last THAT long." Or at least it shouldn't...) Actually, that's basically the book of Deuteronomy in a nutshell. A sermon from Moses to the people of Israel just before they entered the Promised Land.

So in our text today, the people of Israel are listening to Moses, but their eyes are fixed on what's across the river. Land. A good land. Everything they could possibly want or need. This is a far cry from wandering in the desert for 40 years. 40 years of eating nothing but crackers and quail. The Promised Land is a far cry from being slaves in Egypt, forced to haul bricks, build buildings and cities for Pharaoh. God’s been raving about this land for 700 years now, so they can now finally see what all the buzz has been about.

Like Moses says in chapter 8, it's "a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills." Sounds pretty good!

So how do the people of Israel respond to all this? Moses tells them. The only natural response. Praise. Praise. Like Moses says in verse 10, "When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you." Praise. What else could they do? Praise God for this good land.

Well, today, we celebrate Thanksgiving, an American tradition that, of course, goes way back to when the pilgrims had settled here in America. And they sure thought they were in the Promised Land! The crops were good that year, they had learned to build shelter for themselves, and they had religious freedom. America may as well have been the Promised Land for those pilgrims in the early 1600s.

But today we look around, and we know better. Is this the Promised Land? I sure hope not. Because our world, even our own country is pretty messed up sometimes. There are times we look around and we don't see the Promised Land, but a landfill. Things are messed up. They stink. We know that things aren't as they should be.

Even those things that the pilgrims praised God for — their crops, their homes, their religious freedom — even those can be messed up by our sinful world.

Four hundred years ago, the pilgrims were ecstatic because their crops produced. They had plenty to eat. Well, today, I don't know how many of you have grown up on a farm, but I lived on one long enough to know that some years are great, but other years aren't. I've seen whole wheat fields wrecked by hail. A corn crop that was tall and strong, and then didn't get rain all summer, and by harvest that crop had shriveled up and died. There are some crops you just have to till back into the ground, and try again next year. It's life, but just not how it should be.

You may not be a farmer, but I bet there have been times when your crops haven’t produced. Maybe it was a raise or a promotion you worked your tail off for years to get, and it didn't happen. Maybe your hours have been cut, or maybe your job has been cut all together. Maybe your retirement benefits have been sucked down the drain. Sometimes our crops just don’t produce. It's life, but not how it should be.>

Even our homes don't always give us the joy that they should. Years ago it was thought that a home was one of the best investments you could make. The value always goes up! But many of you sitting here today know that, here in Michigan, that's not true at all. But not just that. Our homes can even be wrecked in a matter of minutes by things like a fire, a flood, a tornado. They can be wrecked by what goes on on the inside, too. Fights. Arguments. Divorce. Even death. It's life, but not how it should be.

Even our religious freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be. In America today we still boast of our religious freedom. In fact, we're so free that we can't even tell people what we believe, because it might offend them. We can't tell people that they shouldn't be sleeping around with this person, living with that partner, to believe in Christ, or even a "God." It's life, but not how it should be.

Is this the Promised Land? Hardly. We're not as lucky as those Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy. So in America, in 2009, what do we praise our God for?

Well for starters, we praise our God because he takes care of us. God never promised that our crops would always produce, that our homes would always stand strong, or even that we'd be able to freely talk about our faith. But he did promise that he would take care of us. God does that. He gives you what you need to make it through the day. He even does that through the church. If you're sitting here today and you need some help...help putting food on the table...help making it through the week, ask. Ask for help. Ask the church. Ask God's people sitting around you. Because that's what we're here for. That's what the people of God do. Praise God because he takes care of our daily needs.

But we praise God for another reason. Because God doesn't just take care of our daily life, but he promises to take care of us forever. That's what we see with Jesus on the cross. The cross is where we see that God will do anything, anything — even kill his own Son — so that you can have life forever. Eternal life. The cross is where Christ died for the sins of the world. Your sins. The cross is the reason why you will live — one day — in the Promised Land.

What we see around us today is not the Promised Land. But, one day, the earth as we know it, will melt away. The heavens as we know it will melt away. God promises that a day is coming when there will be new heavens and new earth. This will be our Promised Land. This is where you will live forever. A good and spacious land. A land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing.

That's our Promised Land. A land where jobs will not be lost. A land where disease, divorce, and death will be tossed aside. A land where tears will never be shed. A land where we can praise our God forever, because he's made all things right again.

Praise God. Praise God because you're going there. Praise God, because of Christ you're going to live in the Promised Land.

Now that is a reason to praise our God on this day of Thanksgiving. That is a reason to praise our God all the days of our life. Now, as God's thankful people, let's stand and sing our praises to God!