Thanksgiving, then, is not just about plenty. It is about redemption.
Thanksgiving. The word lands heavy, ripe with memory—fields tilled, harvests brought in, the sacred hum of abundance at tables spread wide. But peel back the orange-lit pumpkins and the brittle autumn leaves, and you’ll find a story far older than New England pilgrims. Thanksgiving, at its heart, is a cosmic drama—a gesture binding heaven and earth, humanity and God, time and eternity.
It is a pattern, a liturgy of life itself. To give thanks is not a matter of polite custom but a primal acknowledgment of what we are. Through creation, the Creator gives and we receive. We, in turn, offer back in faith the fruits of our hands, our breath, our toil. Through this offering, God transforms the finite into something of eternal significance. This exchange hums beneath the surface of all creation, as unchanging as the stars, its cadence heard clearly in the Five Books of Moses and the Psalms of Hallel. It still speaks to those with ears to hear.
To give thanks is not a matter of polite custom but a primal acknowledgment of what we are.
Consider the garden in Genesis. Humanity’s first movement was not one of invention or conquest but reception. Adam and Eve stepped into a world that was already good—its rivers brimming, its trees laden with fruit. Their charge to tend and keep was not an order to reshape the garden but to enter into its abundance with reverence. To care for creation was itself an act of thanksgiving, a turning of hearts toward the Creator.
And within this Edenic rhythm lay the Sabbath, a day not simply to rest but to support the great cosmic truth: all is gift. The work of the six days—filling and forming, giving and receiving—found its fulfillment in this sacred pause, where everything was lifted upward in gratitude. The Sabbath embodied thanksgiving not as a fleeting act but as a fulfillment of life itself.
This rhythm took on physical form in the sacrificial rituals of Israel, where thanksgiving was made tangible. The todah, or thanksgiving offering, stands out. The worshiper brought bread, oil, and an unblemished animal, laying them on the altar as a response to God’s deliverance from peril. But this was no solitary act of piety. The offering became a shared feast—a communal declaration of gratitude, a breaking of bread with priests and neighbors, rich and poor alike. The bread of the todah, mingled with oil and unleavened, bore within it a prophetic strand, pointing to the bread that would one day be broken at a table in an upper room.
When Christ gave thanks at that table, offering his body and blood, he fulfilled the todah. The bread and wine of thanksgiving were translated into an eternal feast, uniting the heavens with the earth. Here, in this Eucharist, thanksgiving became more than ritual—it became redemption, a participation in the life of God himself.
This same thread twines through the Psalms of Hallel, those hymns sung in Israel’s great festivals. Psalm 118 rises like a trumpet blast: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (vs. 22-23). These are not words of easy gratitude, sung in comfort and plenty. They are the cries of a people delivered from death, voices lifted in awe at redemption’s price. The Passover meal, too, is thanksgiving written in bread and blood—lamb, wine, and unleavened loaves speaking of God’s power to save, yet gesturing always beyond themselves to the ultimate redemption.
Thanksgiving, then, is not just about plenty. It is about redemption. It is the grateful song of those who know they have been saved—not by their own hand but by the mercy of God. It is the breaking of bread that reminds us we do not live by bread alone, the lifting of a cup that turns our eyes toward a greater feast yet to come.
Thanksgiving is a rehearsal for eternity. The feast we celebrate now is but a glimpse of the great banquet to come, the wedding feast of the Lamb
But what has become of this sacred understanding? In our modern age, most people are unaware of the symbolism and meaning of traditions and rituals, and so thanksgiving is severed from its roots. It is reduced to sentimentality, buried beneath consumption and shallow ritual. The turkey is commodified, the table viewed as a backdrop for empty gestures rather than the family altar. We have forgotten that every meal carries the weight of Eden, that every shared loaf holds the story of eternity. We have forgotten that the act of thanksgiving is itself a doorway into the sacred.
To recover thanksgiving, we must first recover the posture of the heart. Thanksgiving is not a day on the calendar; it is a way of being. It is a continual lifting up of what we have been given—our labor, our joy, our suffering—and offering it back to God. It is to see the bread and wine of our daily lives not as ends in themselves but as vessels for something far greater.
Thanksgiving is a rehearsal for eternity. The feast we celebrate now is but a glimpse of the great banquet to come, the wedding feast of the Lamb. There, the bread and wine will no longer gesture beyond themselves, for Christ, the Bread of Life, will be present in his fullness. The thanksgiving we offer here, imperfect and finite, will be gathered into the eternal hymn of all creation: Blessing and glory and thanksgiving and honor be to our God forever and ever.
So, as we gather this Thanksgiving, we don’t just gather to eat, drink, and carry on merrily, merrily, merrily. We see the table for what it is—a symbol, directing us to the sacrament, pointing us to an altar where heaven and earth meet. We lift our hearts as offerings, not only counting our blessings but recognizing the One who blesses. In thanksgiving, we find the pattern of creation, the promise of redemption, and the glimpse of eternity. That’s why we give thanks, then, not just for what we have, but for the One who gives himself to us.
