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First off, I want to express my gratitude for all of the good that so many of you do. \u00a0And particularly, today, I want to thank those who have been supportive of the Interpreter Foundation \u2014 as writers, donors, editors, media specialists, volunteers, and so forth. \u00a0I\u2019m especially\u00a0grateful to Bryce Haymond for the work he did, in remarkably short order, of designing our website and getting us up online and, for years, of running our online operations, and to Jeff Bradshaw, who supervised our journal\u2019s weekly production until, when he and his wife were called to serve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa Mission, Allen Wyatt assumed that relentlessly demanding responsibility. \u00a0Thanks to them, and to many others. \u00a0Without them, the Interpreter Foundation would be literally unable to function.<\/p>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A nice column\u00a0from Taylor Halverson, who (among many other things) has contributed a number of articles<\/a>\u00a0and many\u00a0helpful learning resources<\/a>\u00a0to Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow the Sacrament Ties Into Thanksgiving and Why This Holiday Should Remind Us of Our Covenants\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The following item coheres\u00a0neatly with the point that I made\u00a0in the column to which I linked in \u201cThoughts for Thanksgiving (7).\u201d<\/a> \u00a0But it\u2019s funnier:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAtheist Prepares To Offer Heartfelt Thanks To Random, Uncaring Universe On Thanksgiving\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a column that Bill Hamblin and I published in the Deseret News<\/em> on the Saturday before Thanksgiving 2013:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/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.\u00a0 Abraham Lincoln\u2019s formal proclamation of a late-November \u201cDay of Thanksgiving and Praise\u201d came just 150 years ago, in 1863.\u00a0 However, religious festivals of thanksgiving associated with the agricultural cycle, thanking God for a bounteous harvest \u2013 essential to life through the winter \u2014 are much more ancient and universal, and can be found in most religious traditions of the world.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Accordingly, a bountiful harvest was received with gratitude. \u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The sacrifices and festivals of ancient Israel were likewise fundamentally linked to the annual seasons of planting and reaping.\u00a0 One of their sacrifices was actually called the \u201cthanksgiving\u201d (Hebrew \u201ctodah\u201d).\u00a0 As described in Leviticus 7:11-15, the thanksgiving offering was an entire meal, including fried cakes, bread and meat.\u00a0 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\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In ancient Israel, such a \u201choliday feast\u201d\u2014as we now describe it\u2014was actually a \u201choly-day feast.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/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, 107, 118, 136, 138; 1 Chronicles. 16:7, 34, 23:30; 2 Chronicles. 5:13, 7:6; Nehemiah 12:8).\u00a0 One could enter the Israelite temple only if one \u201centered the gates with thanksgiving\u201d (Psalms 100:4 95:2).\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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), singing \u201csongs of thanksgiving\u201d (Jeremiah 30:19).\u00a0 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).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the New Testament, Christ is twice described as giving thanks in the context of a sacred meal.\u00a0 At the feeding of the 5000, 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; Mark 8:6; John 6:11).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The old order of the thanksgiving offering is thus reversed.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/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; Mark 14:23; Luke 22:17, 19; 1 Corinthians 11:24).\u00a0 Christ\u2019s atoning sacrifice has thus become a \u201cthanksgiving offering.\u201d\u00a0 Although in the 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.\u00a0 This is because Christ is described as having \u201cgiven thanks\u201d at the Last Supper\u2014in Greek, \u201ceucharistesas.\u201d\u00a0 (Still today, the modern Greek equivalent of \u201cthank you\u201d is \u201cefkharisto.\u201d)\u00a0 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. \u00a0Appropriately, 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.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Finally, a favorite poem by a favorite poet \u2014 \u201cHurrahing in Harvest,\u201d by Gerard Manley Hopkins \u2014 fitted, more or less, to this Thanksgiving season:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n