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I\u2019ve long felt that American Thanksgiving tends to be a somewhat forlorn and relatively neglected holiday. \u00a0Falling between the fun of the costumes and candies and houses of horror associated with the entirely desacralized holiday of Halloween and the weeks of carols and festivities (and unrelenting commercialism) of the partially desacralized Christmas, it tends to be reduced to something of a poor relation \u2014 a day, merely, of family get-togethers and good traditional foods. \u00a0Both of which, I hasten to say, are good things. \u00a0But gratitude and actual thanks-giving can sometimes be lost among the bustle and the travel and the meal preparation. \u00a0And I\u2019m not just pointing the finger of reproach at others. \u00a0I myself am often guilty of precisely such neglect.<\/p>\n
In an attempt to improve things just a bit \u2014 at least in my own case \u2014 I intend to repost here some of the columns that I\u2019ve written for Thanksgiving in past years, accompanied by hymns that are appropriate to the holiday.<\/p>\n
The first of the hymns that I\u2019ve chosen was probably inspired by Psalm 23:6 and Psalm 150:<\/p>\n Here is a piece that I published with my late friend Bill Hamblin back in 2013:<\/p>\n American traditions of Thanksgiving are generally associated with Puritan harvest feasts in early colonial times, and particularly with the one in October 1621, when Chief Massasoit and about 90 other Native American men joined slightly more than 50 European immigrants at Plymouth Colony, in today\u2019s Massachusetts, for a communal meal.<\/p>\n Abraham Lincoln\u2019s formal proclamation of a late-November \u201cDay of Thanksgiving and Praise\u201d came just 150 years ago, in 1863. However, religious festivals of thanksgiving associated with the agricultural cycle, thanking God for a bounteous harvest \u2014 essential to life through the winter \u2014 are much more ancient and universal, and can be found in most religious traditions of the world.<\/p>\n In ancient agrarian societies, where survival ultimately depended on rain and on the fertility cycles of local plants and animals, a failed harvest could swiftly bring widespread disaster and death. Accordingly, a bountiful harvest was received with gratitude.<\/p>\n The sacrifices and festivals of ancient Israel were likewise fundamentally linked to the annual seasons of planting and reaping. One of their sacrifices was actually called the \u201cthanksgiving\u201d (Hebrew \u201ctodah\u201d). As described in Leviticus 7:11-15<\/a>, the thanksgiving offering was an entire meal, including fried cakes, bread and meat. Furthermore, it was commanded that \u201cthe flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered.\u201d That is, the ancient Israelite thanksgiving sacrifice was a sacred feast, a meal in which the food offerings were symbolically shared with God but were literally eaten by the sacrificer. In ancient Israel, such a \u201choliday feast\u201d \u2014 as we now describe it \u2014 was actually a \u201choly-day feast.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the fundamental psalms sung by the Levite choir each day at the temple was \u201cO give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever\u201d (Psalms 106<\/a>, 107, 118, 136, 138; 1 Chronicles 16:7, 34<\/a>, 23:30<\/a>; 2 Chronicles 5:13<\/a>, 7:6<\/a>; Nehemiah 12:8<\/a>). One could enter the Israelite temple only if one \u201centered the gates with thanksgiving\u201d (Psalms 100:4<\/a>, 95:2). Psalm 50 describes the characteristics of the \u201cthanksgiving sacrifice\u201d (50:15): \u201che who offers thanksgiving (Hebrew \u201ctodah\u201d) glorifies me\u201d (50:23; cf. Psalm 116:17<\/a>).<\/p>\n When Jeremiah prophesied of the future restoration of Jerusalem and its temple, which was to come following the Babylonian captivity, he predicted that the returning Jews would \u201cbring thank offerings to the house of the Lord\u201d (Jeremiah 17:26<\/a>) and singing \u201csongs of thanksgiving\u201d (Jeremiah 30:19<\/a>). Jeremiah likewise prophesied that in Jerusalem should again be heard \u201cthe voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride . . . as they bring the thanksgiving sacrifice (Hebrew \u201ctodah\u201d) into the House of the Lord\u201d (Jeremiah 33:11<\/a>).<\/p>\n In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is twice described as giving thanks in the context of a sacred meal. At the feeding of the 5,000, he took the loaves and fish and, \u201chaving given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds\u201d (Matthew 15:36<\/a>; Mark 8:6<\/a>; John 6:11<\/a>).<\/p>\n In the old Israelite thanksgiving sacrifice, the people were to bring food to the temple and give it to the priests, who would then offer it to God. Now, in a paradoxical reversal of the old order, Christ, as God incarnate, brings the food, offers thanks and gives it to his apostle-priests who then offer it to the people. The old order of the thanksgiving offering is thus reversed.<\/p>\n The same reversal of roles is found at the Last Supper, where, at the Passover dinner, Jesus gives thanks and shares a sacred meal with his apostles (Matthew 26:37<\/a>; Mark 14:23<\/a>; Luke 22:17, 19<\/a>; 1 Corinthians 11:24<\/a>). Christ\u2019s atoning sacrifice has thus become a \u201cthanksgiving offering.\u201d<\/p>\n Although in Latter-day Saint tradition we tend to call our commemoration of the Last Supper the \u201csacrament,\u201d in ancient Christianity it was referred to as the Eucharist \u2014 the \u201cthanksgiving.\u201d This is because Christ is described as having \u201cgiven thanks\u201d at the Last Supper \u2014 in Greek, \u201ceucharistesas.\u201d (Still today, the modern Greek equivalent of \u201cthank you\u201d is \u201cefkharisto.\u201d) Thus, for Latter-day Saint Christians, the sacrament is our commemoration of the archetypal thanksgiving sacrifice and meal of ancient Israel, of which our modern Thanksgiving holiday is only a pale shadow.<\/p>\n Appropriately, too, for many Americans, Thanksgiving kicks off the serious holiday season that culminates in Christmas, which recalls God\u2019s greatest gift to us, his Son.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n My wife and I participated in a small private screening of Six Days in August<\/em> up in Salt Lake City yesterday evening. \u00a0It was the first time that I had seen the movie in several weeks, and I was reminded yet again of how good and solid a film it is. \u00a0I\u2019m proud of what we were able to accomplish, and I look forward now to seeing the remainder of the project take shape.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s crying time again: I\u2019m going to leave you. \u00a0You can see that Hitchens File<\/em> look in my eyes. \u00a0You can tell by the horrors you see coming that it won\u2019t be long before it\u2019s crying time. \u00a0So here are a few of my latest gleanings from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I\u2019ve long felt that American Thanksgiving tends to be a somewhat forlorn and relatively neglected holiday. \u00a0Falling between the fun of the costumes and candies and houses of horror associated with the entirely desacralized holiday of Halloween and the weeks of carols and festivities (and unrelenting commercialism) of the partially desacralized Christmas, it tends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":97647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1453,10165,7485,6843,5319,6711],"class_list":["post-107998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible","tag-biblical","tag-festival","tag-harvest","tag-hebrew","tag-thanksgiving"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
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(Wikimedia Commons photo by Scott Catron)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n