Thanksgiving Day Sermons

What Thanksgiving traditions do you cherish? Today, Stephen Nichols explores Thanksgiving’s roots in church history, highlighting how the holiday has helped Christians focus on the biblical theme of gratitude throughout the years.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. Tomorrow is the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Now, different countries around the world celebrate Thanksgiving in different times, but here in America, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth or the last Thursday of the month of November. Now, I love Thanksgiving, and I'm sure you do too, and I'm sure you have your own Thanksgiving traditions. At the top of my list is our Thanksgiving chapel here at Reformation Bible College. All the chapels are great here at RBC, and I look forward to each and every one of them, but I especially look forward to that Thanksgiving chapel. We gather together, some of our student leaders read Psalms, we sing hymns together, and then we have a very simple meal together just celebrating God's goodness and his kindness to us and all of the good things that we have to be grateful for.

Well, on 5 Minutes, we also love Thanksgiving, and over the years we have talked about different Thanksgiving moments in church history. We could go all the way back to June, 1564. That was the first Thanksgiving on what would come to be American soil. It was not up in New England. It was right here in Florida at Fort Caroline, right next to Saint Augustine. And there the Huguenot gathered together, read Psalms, sang psalms, offered up prayers of Thanksgiving, had a feast together, and celebrated a day of Thanksgiving for God's good hand of providence and the good things he has done in their lives.

Well, we can go up to New England then, December 11th, 1621, there in Plymouth Colony and that first Thanksgiving in New England. A decade later, Boston had its first Thanksgiving in February of 1631. It had been a brutal winter, and famine was looming on the horizon, and then into the port came a ship, the ship The Lion, fresh from England laden with supplies and food. And so the Governor of Boston declared February 22nd, 1631 as a day of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was held at different times. In fact, mostly in the 1700’s, early 1800’s, Thanksgiving more often than not, was celebrated in December, and there were many sermons preached on these Thanksgiving days. There was a sermon preached on December 5th, 1822, and this particular sermon was preached at Plymouth, and it, of course, begins by remembering those fathers of New England in that first Thanksgiving Day. It was not until 1863 and a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln that the last Thursday of the month of November was set apart and observed as a day of Thanksgiving. That very year, November 26th, 1863, the Rev. Alfred Taylor preached a Thanksgiving sermon in Bristol, Pennsylvania, just above Philadelphia. Very interesting title for his sermon, “Our Nation, Not Dead Yet.”

Well, two years prior, there was another Thanksgiving sermon preached. This was on November 21st, 1861. This was preached by the Rev. James Cruickshanks at Newburyport, Massachusetts. That, of course, is the town where George Whitfield preached his last sermon, where he died, and where he is buried. There in Newburyport, Rev. Cruickshanks preached a wonderful sermon on Thanksgiving, and at the end he says this, and maybe you all can think about this tomorrow as you celebrate Thanksgiving or whenever you celebrate Thanksgiving, wherever you may be. He writes,

Let us remember, dear friends, that as we meet at our tables today with our sisters and brothers from distant parts, we are also invited by our elder brother, our divine friend, to join with him in a higher feast, the way there sprinkled with his own blood. Let us not forget, as we are blessed with the providential bounties for the nourishment of these frail bodies that Christ the Lord summons us to a spiritual feast.

Wise words to remember as you celebrate Thanksgiving, and I trust that you and your family have a very enjoyable Thanksgiving. And let me just say this, I'm thankful for you, my listeners to 5 Minutes in Church History.