Lessons from Thanksgiving.
BY lydia huang
I never expected to spend three Thanksgivings at Cornell, but in doing so, I have experienced the Lord, His faithfulness, and His warmth abundantly in a place that is notorious for being cold and dreary. This Thanksgiving, I had some time to reflect, and came to a few conclusions that I hope encourages you in whatever season of life you’re in.
1. God always provides—through faithful Christians, the encouragement of friends, and His Holy Spirit.
It would be really nice if everything we needed fell from the sky like manna from heaven. But I think God more often provides for us through people—people who have been touched with the love of God. [1] It was a beautiful sight seeing the hands of my faithful friends so diligently cook a meal—not for themselves—but for others. “God bless the hands that made this food” goes the common prayer…but also, God bless the faithful, unseen Christians that work construction, fix faucets, change diapers, clean kitchens, sweep church floors, set out the hospitality table, and provide rides. Through the grace of everyday Christians, I have surely tasted His goodness in the land of the living. [2] I love seeing God’s Holy Spirit move through Christian community to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.
God worked through people to write the Scriptures, and His Word provides everlasting comfort and hope. I’m sure that God wants to provide through you, but only if you let Him!
2. Good things take time… like walking with the Lord and roasting stuffed turkey.
At Claritas’s retreat last semester, Annina said something that has stuck with me since: “It’s no hurry, Lyd. Good things take time”. I’d claim this is quite biblically accurate! “I waited patiently for the Lord,” says the Psalmist. [3] Sometimes, that’s what life feels like: waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Each time I craned my head into the oven to peer at the turkey, I’d think to myself, Are you done yet??? I ask God the same question in seasons when I can do nothing but wait. Yet, if I know anything about the Lord’s work in my own life, He always has His perfect timing, and just like the Thanksgiving turkey, it will be beautiful and glorious! [4]
3. He prepares a table before me.
He anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows. [5] His grace overflows abundantly. God provides more than what I could ever ask for. The Thanksgiving feast laid out on the table is a wonderful example of his unexpected provision in our lives.[6]
4. It is good and right to give thanks to the Lord, and thanksgiving, is sanctifying.
As many of my friends know, I have a sarcasm problem (if you could not tell in my writing yet). I like to gloss it over as “dry humor,”, but it can quickly devolve into jokes that are pretty negative or snide. This Thanksgiving, I felt quite convicted that my speech ought to be full of grace and of giving thanks rather than sarcasm. In Ephesians 5, we are exhorted to “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly beloved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”. The Scriptures put “obscenity, foolish talk, and course joking” alongside sexual immorality, impurity, and greed! There should be none of it, but “rather thanksgiving.”[7] How deep is the Father’s love that He so cares about what we say to each other. Thanksgiving and deep gratitude for all God has given me helped me change my interior life, and thus change my speech.
5. Christian hospitality is radical because of who Jesus is!
One of my favorite verses EVER is Hebrews 13:1: “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” [8] But Hebrews 13:1 does not encapsulate the many, many verses about caring for one another that we see in Scripture (see Genesis 18:2, Leviticus 19:33-34, Ruth 2:15, John 21:17, Romans 12:13, Acts 16:15). I’m quite convinced that as Christians, we are not only to be hosts, but sincere and excellent hosts, as Jesus was to us. [9] We are not only to invite people who are our friends or people we like, but the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. [9] At Cornell, I’m so often wrapped up in my own life that I often forget the “the least of these.” Yet, more than anything “prestigious” that an Ivy League like Cornell offers, it is an honor to emulate the King of Kings. How beautiful it is that, as followers of Jesus, we get to be His hands and feet in the short time we are on earth. Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. [10] Jesus invited in the unclean woman. [11] Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. [12] I love hosting because it is a beautiful analogy of the way God invites us in just as we are, and sends us out with full bellies and full hearts.
The case of the last supper is interesting to me. It could have been, “the last sermon,” “the last miracle,”“the last lecture,” before Christ was nailed to the cross. But God decided for it to be a last supper. The Lord of Hosts did what could possibly be the most humble of things: He sat and ate with people He knew would betray Him hours later. [13] I think a lot about this. Would I invite someone over knowing that just hours later, they would slander me or talk bad about me to others? Would I serve them, with a loving heart, bread and wine? Would I wash the feet of someone who I know would drive me up to the cross? Would I die for a person who has repeatedly hurt me, over and over again with his words and actions? Jesus did all of this, and the Last Supper is an act of mercy that I still can’t comprehend. I wonder, you know, how Jesus can extend hospitality when He is in great pain. At the jeering crowd, he pleads with the Father on their behalf, “Father, they know not what they are doing.” In the most excruciating of agonies, Christ invites the thief on the cross to Heaven, saying “today, you will be with me in paradise.” [14] It is an act of grace that I know I myself would be incapable of. The feeling of betrayal feels like death itself. Jesus knew people He deeply loved turn their backs on Him in time of great need, and yet, loved these people by giving His own life.
Jesus teaches us a whole new kind of hospitality.
Sources
[1] Romans 5:5 (NIV)
[2] Psalm 27:13 (NIV)
[3] Psalm 40:1 (NIV)
[4] Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)
[5] Psalm 23 (NIV)
[6] Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
[7] Ephesians 5:3 (NIV)
[8] Hebrews 13:1 (NIV)
[9] Matthew 25:40 (NIV)
[10] Matthew 9:10 (NIV)
[11] Luke 7:47 (NIV)
[12] John 13:1-7 (NIV)
[13] Mark 14: 18 (NIV)
[14] Luke 23:43