Jeremiah 31:31-33
The prophecy from Jeremiah this week takes us to the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus said of the cup, “This is the new covenant in my blood.” When they finished the supper, they sang a hymn. We often don’t reflect on that, other than singing “Bless Be the Tie” when we finish Communion. Yet, they sang a specific Psalm, one of the Songs of Ascent, which are Psalms of Thanksgiving sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and the Temple.
As Jesus heads to the garden and his betrayal, he sang a thanksgiving to his Father. In our thanksgiving, we don’t ignore the challenges and the trials we are going through, but we do reflect on the presence of our God that has promised “Never to leave you or forsake you.”
Thanksgiving as a national holiday began in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. In his proclamation of Thanksgiving, President Lincoln wrote:
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have
been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown
in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us.
We have vainly imagined . . . that all these blessings were produced by some
superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success,
we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming
and preserving graced, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
Thanksgiving focuses on God and blessings we enjoy from God. Take this as your focus this week.
Pastor Greg
