Bible Passage: Genesis 8:22
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: Thanksgiving 2023

Bulletin Thanksgiving 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

I want to begin by telling you about an amazing thanksgiving that once took place.  This thanksgiving took place long before the Pilgrims.  There was no turkey dinner at this thanksgiving, but there was a sacrifice of what are called “clean birds.”  (There might have been a turkey in there.)  It is the thanksgiving that took place on the day Noah and his family finally came out of the ark when the Flood was over.  On that day, we are told, Noah built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed some of all the clean animals and clean birds. (Genesis 8:20)  Can we even begin to imagine how happy and thankful Noah must have been that the Flood was over?

It was while Noah was celebrating thanksgiving that the Lord God resolved in his heart the words of our text.  If we carefully contemplate these words, we will learn a very important lesson for Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving begins by Giving Thanks that it’s Thanksgiving Again.

What do we mean by this?  “Giving thanks that it’s thanksgiving again.”  Listen again to the text:  While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.  This verse speaks of an orderly and predictable and annual progression of things.   We can know that we are not going to stall out right here, with the leaves off the trees and the grass now dormant.  We know that winter is coming.  We know it is going to snow and be cold.  We know it, because the earth is doing what it always does.  It is tilting on its axis.  The northern hemisphere is tilting away from the sun so that we are heading into winter.  It’s good news if you live in the southern hemisphere!  There they are heading into summer!

But we know what is going to happen next.  On December 21 we are going to start tilting back the other way.  The northern hemisphere will begin tilting back.  The sun will get higher.  The rays of the sun will become more direct. Things will warm and come out of dormancy.  Trees and bushes will bud.  It will be spring!  And it will be seedtime again.  And we know that, if the Lord Jesus has not returned, one year from now farmers will be finishing another harvest and we will be celebrating another Thanksgiving.

Now, this all may seem boring and basic.  But let’s just review for a moment the year Noah had when our text was first spoken by God.  Noah had just spent the last year on the ark.  That’s right!  Noah was on the ark just over a year!  And it was most certainly NOT a normal year for this world.  There had been no seedtime and harvest this year.  You know the story.  The world had been under water that year.  It was under water because it was under God’s judgment.  Things had gotten so bad, sin had gotten so bad, that there were only eight believers left on the face of the earth!  Noah and Mrs. Noah, their three sons and their wives.  The world was godless and loveless and violent.  So God wiped out all life on earth in the waters of the Flood.  But in grace he saved Noah and his family on the ark.  The world would get a “do-over.”  It was after the waters of the Flood had receded and Noah and his family were off the ark that God said the words of our text.

Friends, the fact that we have come full circle, we have once again been passengers on planet earth while it traveled around the sun and have arrived again at a Thanksgiving Day means that God has been faithful to his Word!  This world did not have another year like it did when Noah and his family were on the ark.  This world did not spend the last year under water!  God did not wipe out life on earth in an act of judgment, even though he could not be criticized if he had done so!  For that we can be grateful!

Think back on your year.  The sun rose and the sun set every day.  The seasons came and the seasons went.  Think back on the fall-blessings you enjoyed.  Think about the winter-blessings you enjoyed.  Think about the spring-blessings you enjoyed.  Think about the summer-blessings you enjoyed.  And through it all, there was our faithful God!  Making sure the earth was revolving and rotating and tilting exactly when and how it should!  It would be very difficult to enjoy any blessings if the Lord stopped doing this even for a day!

And let’s remember the reason WHY God so faithfully and graciously keeps the promise of our text.  God has feelings for this revolving, rotating, tilting, sinful world.  He loves it…he really loves it!  Who can ever forget the words of Jesus?  God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  God loves the PEOPLE in this world.   People who are as proud, rebellious, violent, godless as the people at the time of Noah.  People who are as ripe for a flood as they were.  God loves us all.  And sent his Son, Jesus, to this world, to redeem with his blood the people of this world.

And this world continues to spin because God wants all people to hear about Jesus.  That is why this world spins.  Not so that we can simply enjoy the blessings of springtime blossoms and summer sunshine and autumn colors and winter snowscapes.  It spins so that more and more people can come to enjoy Jesus!

Think back again on this past year.  Did you enjoy Jesus?  Whether it was seedtime or harvest, when it was cold and when it was hot, when it was summer and when it was winter, when it was day and when it was night, you enjoyed Jesus!   You enjoyed Jesus in the Word you heard.  You enjoyed Jesus as he came to you again and again in the Lord’s Supper.  You enjoyed his forgiveness, his grace, his willingness to hear and answer prayer, his help, his strength, his peace.

And that is why, as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, we will never cease being thankful people!

Amen.