25th Week after Pentecost: Thanksgiving Day

Be filled with the Spirit...

Giving thanks to God. (Ephesians 5:19-20)

It is fitting that Thanksgiving Day falls between the last Sunday of Pentecost and the First Sunday of Advent. It’s the hinge between our Ordinary Days and the beginning of the Christian Calendar. Through “summer and winter and seed time and harvest” (Gn 8:22), the Holy Spirit has sustained us; and now, we look towards those extraordinary days of God’s redeeming appearance among us. In between, we gather around our Table of Thanksgiving.

Watch how, in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Pentecost leads to thanksgiving: “Be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 5:19-20). Notice how the whole of our triune God is in on it:

Be filled with the Spirit…

Giving thanks to God the Father…

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God the Spirit who in unseen ways sustains us; God the Father who created all thing and makes an enormous resolves to stick with his creation; and, God the Son who redeems all things. That’s why “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God's word and by prayer” (1Tm 4:4-5).