Genuine Thanksgiving

 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. ~ Colossians 3:17  

     It is hard not to reiterate what everyone with an audience will say on the eve of America’s Thanksgiving Day; that it is a time for giving thanks and for humble gratitude offered to God. It will be tempting to think too much about food, family, and football, but we should take time to count our blessings, etc., etc., etc. These annual cliches are absolutely true and yet, as with anything that is too often repeated, it can become another form of background noise. So how can we find a greater depth of meaning amid the noise this year? 

     Let’s start with the quote above from Paul’s letter to the Church in Colosse. It reminds us to do all things in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. It will be helpful to go back to the letter’s introduction to grasp the significance of giving thanks to God through Jesus Christ. 

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, ~ Colossians 1:3-6

     First, Paul gives thanks to God for opening the way to His presence through Christ, then Paul gives thanks for the way Christ exhibits himself in the saints through the Word. In other words, he sees the two-way connection in the Body of Christ and it gives him joy. Now, let’s look at what Paul says about Christ in the next few verses.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. ~ Colossians 1:15-23

     The preeminence that Paul speaks of is Christ’s headship. He means it literally when he says that Christ Jesus is the head of the Body, the Church. So, as with any living creature, if you cut off the head the rest of the body dies. Or, put another way, when the signals are lost between extremities and the head, the hands, feet, fingers, toes, etc. become useless, atrophy, and die. When Paul says that we were once cut off, he means that we were dead and useless to the head, Christ Jesus, who has been our head since before creation. We were created to be His Body. Since severed the connections so that the Body was like that of a quadriplegic. What God has done through Christ is to repair the severed spinal cord and restore the Body. 

     So, when we give thanks in whatever we do, in word or deed, we do so in the name of the Lord Jesus, and thus to God the Father through him. Paul summed it up succinctly when he said in Acts 17:28, “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” Paul is not only saying that we are Christ’s Body again, but that being so, we are nothing less than sons and daughters of God the Father. 

     This is something that you can give thanks for that has nothing to do with the size of your feast, the number of persons around you, or whether your team wins or not. It doesn’t matter if you are sick, unemployed, in broken relationships, or grieving. It doesn’t matter if your candidate won the election, anarchy or political systems frighten you, or pandemics shattered your dreams. You are more than those things. You are a child of God, destined for eternal life and perfect oneness with God through Christ. Now, there’s something to be thankful for.