Every fourth Thursday of November, Americans mark Thanksgiving. American Thanksgiving is a relatively modern tradition, but the principle behind it has a long biblical basis and liturgical history. This is the story …
Meaning of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a special time when families and communities pause to give thanks for life’s blessings. In both Jewish and Christian traditions, thanksgiving is deeply rooted in Scripture, liturgy, and history.
Origin of the word Thanksgiving
The first known use of the word “thanksgiving” in an English text is from William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament in 1526. He uses the word in 2 Corinthians 4:15 and 9:11, in Colossians 4:2, and in 1 Timothy 4:4, where he spelled it - or the printer set it - as “thankesgevynge”. William Shakespeare also uses the word in Love’s Labour Lost in 1598. The modern spelling of “thanksgiving” comes from the King James Version 1769 edition, where the word is specifically found 21 times in the Old Testament and nine times in the New Testament.
Thanksgiving in the Old Testament
The theme of thanksgiving is richly found echoed through the Jewish Scriptures. Leviticus 7:12-15 describes thanksgiving with unleavened cakes and bread. Leviticus 22:29 adds that it needs to be a freewill offering. The Jewish festival of Sukkot, also called the Feast of Booths, celebrates the autumnal harvest and God’s provision in the wilderness (Leviticus 23:40-43).In King David’s first recorded psalm he said, “Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, and make known his deeds among the people” (1 Chronicles 16:8), and “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for his mercy endureth for ever” (1 Chronicles 16:34).
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In the Psalter itself, many of the psalms are psalms of thanksgiving. Psalm 7:17 says, “I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness.” Psalm 95:2 says, “Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms”. Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise”. Psalm 107:1 says “give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever”.
Then Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of thine increase.” Later in Nehemiah thanksgiving was given for the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
Thanksgiving in the New Testament
Jesus practised thanksgiving. Before feeding the five thousand, he gave thanks for the food (Luke 9:16), and he blessed and broke bread in the manner of Jewish tradition. During the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and wine and gave thanks, and instituted the new covenant that Christians continue to celebrate in Communion (Luke 22:19-20). Some churches re-enact this every Sunday, and so the act of giving thanks is integral to Christian worship.
St Paul and Thanksgiving
In the New Testament St Paul mentions thanksgiving in many of his letters. “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15). He writes that we should “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), and “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). He says we should be abounding with thanksgiving (Colossians 2:7) and thanksgiving should be a continual part of prayer (Colossians 4:2).
Book of Common Prayer
The practice of thanksgiving was common to English Christians, whether of the traditional Anglican or Puritan tradition. In 1549, the Book of Common Prayer was created for use in the Church of England. The 1552 edition provided for special thanksgiving prayers in English for specific occasions. There was “the Thanksgiving of Women after child-birth commonly called, the Churching of Women” when Psalms 116 and 127 were to be read. There was “A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to Almighty God” to be read “every year upon the Anniversary of the Day of Accession of the Reigning Sovereign”. The 1662 Prayer Book had a section of “Prayers and Thanksgivings upon Several Occasions”, these were prayers of thanksgiving for rain, for fair weather, for plenty, for peace and deliverance from our enemies, for restoring publick peace at home, for deliverance from the plague. These prayers are short, formal, reverent, and scripturally-rooted, collecting themes together.
Thanksgiving for the Harvest
There was also “A Form of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest” when the prayer was “O Almighty and everlasting God, who has graciously given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season; We yield thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching thee to give us grace rightly to use the same to thy glory, and the relief of those that need; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.”
Earliest North American Thanksgivings
Christian colonists, Catholic and Protestant, destined for North America continued the thanksgiving tradition and held thanksgivings for safe passage and successful harvests. In 1620, a group of English settlers headed to America aboard the Mayflower. It was only natural that after 66 days, when they made landfall that they gave thanksgiving prayers for a safe passage. The following year in 1621, after they had had their first successful harvest, it would have been natural to hold a harvest thanksgiving. The surviving settlers invited their new native Americans friends to join them for a huge feast which lasted three days. It is this particular thanksgiving story, which is recalled in the American Thanksgiving, but it is rooted in a deeper tradition of Jewish and Christian Thanksgiving.
Collect
The Anglican collect prayer for Thanksgiving Day is: “Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you for all your gifts so freely bestowed upon us: for life and health and safety, for strength to work and leisure to rest, for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life; but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
