Give Thanks in All Things?

Thanksgiving. You probably already know that the word Eucharist actually means “thanksgiving”, and of course the Eucharist is at the center of the Mass, and therefore thanksgiving is at the very heart of our life and worship as Catholics.

You shouldn’t be surprised then to learn that some form of the word “thanks” or “thanksgiving” appears in the Bible 147 times. For example,

• 1 Chronicles 16:8 says “Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name; make known among the nations his deeds.”
• Psalm 30:5 says “Sing praise to the LORD, you faithful; give thanks to God's holy name.”
• Psalm 106:1 says “Hallelujah! Give thanks to the LORD, who is good, whose love endures forever.”
• The Prophet Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 33:11 that we should “Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good; his mercy endures forever.”
• In Colossians 2:6-7, Saint Paul wrote, “So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
• And in Revelation 11:17 we read that “the twenty-four elders who sat on their thrones before God prostrated themselves and worshiped God and said: ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God almighty, who are and who were. For you have assumed your great power and have established your reign.’”

I could go on and on – that’s only six instances, and there are 141 more!

But there is one verse in those 147 that I really want to focus on. It is First Thessalonians 5:18. Some of you probably know this one by heart. This is the verse where Paul writes “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

Give thanks in all circumstances! Now when Paul says “all circumstances”, you know he doesn’t mean just the good and happy moments in life. After all, we really don’t need Paul to tell us to give thanks for the good times – most people will do that naturally. He gives a list of the kinds of circumstances he means in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:

Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure.

So Paul is saying to give thanks even when all kinds of bad things happen. Give thanks when you are shipwrecked! Give thanks while you are being nearly stoned to death! Now when you say it like that, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Who in their right mind would give thanks while being stoned to death?

I know many of you have gone through some pretty tough circumstances of your own, and some of you are probably going through tough times right now. Recently, a friend of mine got himself into such serious financial trouble that he couldn’t buy food to feed his family. Another young man I know lost his apartment and had to move into a cheap hotel; every penny he made working in a restaurant went to paying his daily hotel bill. If it wasn’t for the free meal he got each day at the restaurant, he would have starved.

A wonderful friend of ours, a bright and happy lady who loves God with all her heart, recently learned that she has cancer of the kidney. I have an aunt who lives in Seattle. One morning a few years ago she got up out of bed and collapsed. It turned out that she has a degenerative muscle disorder that  put her into a wheel chair for good.

Several years ago our nineteen year-old daughter Marlo died in a car accident, a head-on collision, along with her boyfriend and their unborn baby, who would have been our first grandchild. A year later, our ten-year old daughter suddenly couldn’t breathe. She died as the AirLife helicopter flew her to Methodist Children’s Hospital.

How can any of us give thanks in circumstances like these? What is Paul really talking about? I want to spend some time thinking about this question with you. And I think it will help us if we break this question down into two questions. First, what is it we supposed to give thanks for? Second, how should give we thanks?

What Are We Supposed to Give Thanks For?

Every year most of us celebrate Christmas in one way or another. On Christmas morning, the same scene will be played out in millions of homes across the country and the world. Little Johnny will unwrap his present from Grandma, and to his delight find that it’s the new toy he has been telling everyone he wants. Immediately, he will start to run off to play with it, but his Mom will stop him and say, “Now Johnny, what do say?” And what does Mom expect Johnny to say? Thank you, of course!

Saying “thank you” is what you do when someone gives you a gift. So if Paul tells us that we should give thanks to God, it must be because God has given something to us.

In Second Corinthians, Paul gives us a hint at what he is thinking about. In chapters eight and nine, he is writing to the Corinthians about his project to collect money to provide financial relief for the persecuted Christains in Jerusalem. He starts out in chapter eight bragging about the Macedonian Christians who, even though they were severely afflicted and in profound poverty, overflowed in generosity and gave beyond their means (2 Corinthians 8:1-4). In chapter nine, he puts this project into a much larger perspective. He says God has enriched the Corinthians so that they too can be generous, and their generosity not only relieves the suffering of the saints, but it also overflows “in many acts of thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12). Then in the next few verses Paul says that the Corinthians are glorifying God by their generosity “because of the surpassing grace of God” upon them. And then he exclaims, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:13-15).

You see, Paul is describing a circle that begins when God pours out his surpassing grace to us, which we then share with others. The circle is then completed when all of us together raise our praise and thanksgiving to God. So it is “God’s surpassing grace” that sets the circle of thanksgiving into motion.

Now Paul’s idea that we give thanks in response to God’s surpassing grace probably makes sense to you, although you might be wondering what exactly Paul means by “surpassing grace”. You might also be asking if this could really be what Paul had in mind when he said to give thanks in all circumstances. Did he mean, for example, that in the face of our daughter’s death, my wife and I should thank God for his grace? You might well be thinking that whatever God’s grace is all about, it is hard to see why we should give thanks for it or anything else in the face of such tragedy. We might be much more likely to ask “God, where were you when I needed you?”

Paul answers these questions in one of the most beautiful and powerful passages in the Bible. It is Philippians 3:7-11. Here is what he says:

Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Here Paul is telling us what he means by God’s all surpassing gift of grace. He tells us that it means three things. First and foremost, it means the “supreme good” of knowing Christ Jesus! By calling it the “supreme good” Paul means that there is nothing– indeed there can be nothing– greater than knowing Jesus. Second, it means that God gives us the righteousness that comes by faith, the kind of righteousness that we could never attain by ourselves. And third, it means attaining the resurrection from the dead.

Let’s look at each one of these in turn.

Knowing Jesus

Did you notice how Paul says that, compared to knowing Jesus, all of our other accomplishments in life, no matter how wonderful, are like trash to be thrown away? To understand why Paul says this, I think it helps to look at the Gospel of John, specifically John 14:8-9. Here is what it says:

Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?”

To know Jesus is to know God.

Paul makes the same point in Colossians 1:15-17:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

To know Jesus is to know the creator of the Universe. But he did not just create the Universe and then walk away from it like some people think he did. For Paul says, “in him all things hold together.” So when you know Jesus, you are in communion with the power behind the sun and the stars and all the galaxies, the same power that is at this very moment holding the atoms in your body and in everything else together. And that power is not some mysterious, unnamed force that you can only wonder at. No, that power is a person, Jesus Christ, and the exciting news is that you can know him personally.

The Gift of Righteousness by Faith

The second thing grace means is the gift of righteousness by faith.

To understand what this gift really means, we first need to realize how much we need it. In Psalm 24:3-4, the Psalmist summed up our need for righteousness this way:

Who may go up the mountain of the LORD? Who can stand in his holy place? The clean of hand and pure of heart.

The Psalmist is recognizing what God said to Israel in Leviticus 20:7, God said “be holy; for I, the LORD, your God, am holy”. So how can we be holy, clean of hand, and pure of heart?

We probably know what clean of hand means, but what about “pure of heart”? In the Gospel of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained it like this:

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, “You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment… You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:21-22 and 27-28)

You see, it is not enough to be clean of hand, that is, holy in your actions. God also demands of you to be pure of heart, that is, holy in your mind and in your thoughts as well. And yet how many of us can say that we have attained holiness of both hand and heart? If someone does claim to have achieved such holiness, they might want to read 1 John 1:10, where John writes, “If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Remember, John wrote that to Christians.

So it looks like we’re in a lot of trouble. God demands of us perfect holiness, but no matter how hard we try, we can’t be holy. We can’t even get close.

But Paul has good news. In Second Corinthians 5:21, he wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Jesus took our sins to the Cross so that his righteousness could be ours. We can’t do it for ourselves, but Jesus can do it for us.

So now you might be asking, how we can take advantage of this wonderful gift of righteousness? Paul tells us the answer to that one too. The key is that phrase in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “in him,” meaning “in Christ.” For Paul, being “in Christ” is the key to everything. In Galatians 3:26-27, he wrote:

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

That beautiful phrase says it all. When you were baptized, you were clothed with Christ, and his righteousness became yours.

Resurrection from the Dead

That brings us to the third meaning of grace: resurrection. In that wonderful gift of righteousness that we received in baptism, there is a surprise. Listen to what Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5:

Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.

That is amazing, isn’t it? In that passage, Paul tells us that hidden in the gift of Christ’s righteousness, there is another gift: being united with him in the resurrection.

Now when Paul talks about the resurrection like this, there is a sense in which he is talking about the future when, at the end of time, God will raise both the righteous and the wicked to face judgment. Jesus talked about this double resurrection in John 5:28-29. He said:

The hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.

Paul himself also talked about this future resurrection in Acts 24:15, when he said, “There will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Now think of what that means for so many of us who have lost loved ones, whether they are children or parents or brothers or sisters or whoever your loved ones may be. To be in Christ is to be included in the Resurrection of the Righteous. I can tell you that I dream of that day, when we will be standing before God united with Christ in the Resurrection, and Marlo and Monica will be standing there with us! And your loved ones with you!

But Paul doesn’t leave it there.

Listen to what he says in Colossians 2:12:

You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

Did you notice the subtle difference compared to what Paul said in Romans 6:5? In Romans, Paul said “we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.” Shall. Future tense. Not yet. But in Colossians Paul said, “you were also raised with him”. Were. It already happened. It’s here and now.

So although there is an important sense in which the resurrection lies in the future, there is another equally important sense in which the resurrection has already happened. When we enter into Jesus Christ through baptism, we enter into his resurrection life. If you are in Christ, your resurrection life has already started, because Jesus’ resurrection is already a reality. It is true that your resurrection body lies in the future. But your resurrection life is already here.

That is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Why Give Thanks

We see now why we can’t help but give thanks in all circumstances. Because we have been baptized into Christ, we have a personal relationship with the creator and the sustainer of the Universe. He clothes us with himself and gives to us the indescribable gift of his righteousness and the power of his resurrection life. No matter what happens to us, whatever challenges we may face, whatever tragedies may come our way, we know that in the end, our Lord, Creator, Sustainer, and Savior is to going set everything right in the resurrection. And perhaps the most amazing part of it all is that our resurrection life, while awaiting its ultimate fulfillment in the future, has already begun.

How Should We Give Thanks?

So let us give thanks in all circumstances! But how should we give thanks?

Well, of course, we can always say “thank you” to God, and that is exactly what we do when we praise and worship him, as indeed the Psalms tell us that what we should. Psalm 100, among many others, says in verse 4 “Enter the temple gates with praise, its courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks to God, bless his name.”

But remember back in 2 Corinthians 9:12 where Paul talked about “overflowing in many acts of thanksgiving to God”? God wants us to thank him not only with our songs and our speech, but also in our actions such as giving of ourselves to others as the Macedonian Christians had done.

But there is more. In Leviticus 22:29-30, we read this:

Whenever you offer a thanksgiving sacrifice to the LORD, so offer it that it may be acceptable for you; it must, therefore, be eaten on the same day; none of it shall be left over until the next day. I am the LORD.

Obviously, Leviticus is talking about an animal sacrifice, so we see that giving thanks the way God wants us to involves sacrifice. And of course, we offer just exactly this kind of sacrifice every time we go to Mass.

But we also read in Hebrews these beautiful words: “Let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15). Now before you get too excited about how easy that sounds, remember that in the first century, to publicly confess Christ with your lips often led to a death sentence. So the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving really involves offering God the sacrifice of our lives.

And that realization helps us to understand Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:1:

I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.

So yes, we should and do give thanks to God with our lips in song and praise, and we offer him the sacrifice of thanksgiving in the Eucharist, the Mass. But let us also give him thanks by offering him our lives, our very selves.