Presented to Riverside Cafe 07 October 2016
Read Psalm 100
There is a children`s book, Thanksgiving Day in Canada - I hope to
remember to bring it Sunday. I have quoted it quite often for many years when
speaking about Thanksgiving in Canada – my children all know the book very well
too. This year I found out something very interesting. You know that Susan and
I are responsible for The Salvation Army`s Warehouse Mission now as well as 614
here. With Thanksgiving coming up I happened to be speaking with the worship
leader, Krys Lewicki, there about the book and it turns out that he wrote that
book (it was promoted by CBC as part of Canada`s 125 anniversary). Krys also
wrote a Thanksgiving song that is in that book that we will hear on Sunday as
he will be helping lead us in worship here. From the book:
The origins of
Canadian Thanksgiving are more closely connected to the traditions of Europe
than of the United States. Long before Europeans settled in North America,
festivals of thanks and celebrations of harvest took place in Europe in the
month of October. The very first Thanksgiving celebration in North America took
place in Canada when Martin Frobisher, an explorer from England, arrived in
Newfoundland in 1578. He wanted to give thanks for his safe arrival to the New
World. That means the first Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated 43 years
before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts!
For a few
hundred years, Thanksgiving was celebrated in either late October or early November,
before it was declared a national holiday in 1879. It was then, that November
6th was set aside as the official Thanksgiving holiday. But then on January 31,
1957, Canadian Parliament announced that on the second Monday in October,
Thanksgiving would be "a day of
general thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with
which Canada has been blessed."
Thanksgiving was
moved to the second Monday in October because after the World Wars, Remembrance
Day (November 11th) and Thanksgiving kept falling in the same week. Another
reason for Canadian Thanksgiving arriving earlier than its American counterpart
is that Canada is geographically further north than the United States, causing
the Canadian harvest season to arrive earlier than the American harvest season.
And since Thanksgiving for Canadians is more about giving thanks to the Lord
for the harvest season than the arrival of pilgrims, it makes sense to
celebrate the holiday in October.
In this day and age of the Holy being
replaced by the secular so much in our society, it is good to remember that
Parliament itself has declared this upcoming Thanksgiving as "a day of
general thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with
which Canada has been blessed."
Please this weekend let us remember not
only to be thankful but to be thankful to God; and with all else that we are
indeed thankful for let us not neglect our gratitude for the harvest that the
farmers have reaped this year and all those who the Lord will and does provide for
through that.
This weekend and this day let us remember
to offer thanksgiving to almighty God for all else and for the bountiful
harvest with which we have been blessed.
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