Did you hear what Paul said? "Give thanks in all circumstances," with the operative word being "all." Either Paul is incredibly naïve, or he knew something that most of the rest of us just don't know.

Growing up in a Swedish Lutheran Congregation, I remember the singing this one specific hymn every Thanksgiving Eve, appropriately titled "Thanks to God." We are going to sing it tonight.

The reason I remember this hymn as a child/young adolescent especially, is because of some lines in the hymn troubled me; made no sense to me whatsoever; even made me a little crazy! I asked my Sunday School Teacher about them, and he said, "Joe, there are some things about God’s plan that we must just accept." Well, I couldn't accept it!

The hymn was written in 1891 by a Swedish Pastor named August Ludvig Storm who served in the Swedish Salvation Army. You have the words in your bulletin. I had no problem with most of the lines in the hymn except for a few, but those few troubled me in a big way.

The first one was, "Thanks for tears by now forgotten." That line really vexed me! How was I supposed to be thankful for tears? I grew up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic, abusive home. At times it was a living hell. I had shed rivers of tears; cried oceans of tears. My tears and the wounds that caused them were very real and were very frightening. I didn't understand how I could be thankful to God for such horrible things? Nobody could satisfactorily answer my questions about it.

Another line in the old hymn that puzzled me was "Thanks for pain…." I didn't get it! How do I thank God for pain - especially when it's unbearable? Last February I had major back surgery, six levels of fusion in my lower spine. In the months leading up to surgery I was in excruciating pain and had trouble walking. For seven weeks following surgery I was in agonizing pain and needed help just getting out of bed. I guarantee you I did not start my day with the prayer, "Thank you Lord for this horrific pain, that doesn’t allow me to sleep or rest, and the medications I take to alleviate the pain make me ill and give me anxiety attacks. Thank you, Lord!"

Finally, in verse 3 we have "Thanks for sorrow." When I was 13 years old my best friend was accidentally killed in a gun accident. I simply couldn't fathom being thankful for such a gut-wrenching experience as sorrow. I was racked with grief. Sorrow is about a breaking, aching heart! Sorrow is about feeling like your life weighs 10,000 pounds, so heavy that you can hardly move! Sorrow is about feeling alone and lost, forgotten and forsaken. My mouth couldn’t sing the words of this old hymn on Thanksgiving Eve at Trinity Lutheran Church in Rockford, Illinois. Instead, I felt an almost irresistible urge to stand up in that congregation and scream as loud as I could, "Tell me somebody, how do I give thanks for such things?" I couldn't sing that hymn, so I didn't!

I suppose the thing that really bothered me about this old hymn was I intuitively knew that if I were to give thanks to God for these bad and negative things, then it must be that God was doing these things to me, part of a mysterious plan, for reasons I could not imagine, like my Sunday School teacher had told me. Well, I didn't like that kind of a sadistic God, and I didn't buy it! I wasn't ready to buy it then as a young adolescent, and not I'm about to buy it now!

The late Henri Nouwen, acclaimed priest and author tells about two friends who departed after fourteen years from the Daybreak L'Arche Community in Toronto at which he was Spiritual Director. Nouwen says that these two friends had accomplished much. They had experienced many successes and joys. But he also said there were many sorrows, failures and disappointments. He said that during the last weeks before their departure these friends had repeated, in their conversations with others, a theme that went like this:

My dear friends, what are you thankful for? Are you only thankful for the good things: the positive times; the pleasant memories; the happy moments; the successes; the victories; the times of health and wealth and abundance? For the most part, we divide up our lives into two GENERAL categories: Good things to REMEMBER! Bad things to FORGET! We hope to accumulate more good things.

But that's not what Paul is saying in the verses from Thessalonians. That's not what Pastor Storm is proclaiming in the words of his old hymn.

These two characters seem to be saying that our gratitude to God is to embrace ALL of our circumstances: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the successes and the failures, the holy and the profane; and that is totally opposite of the way we normally think; totally contrary to a million messages that we get everyday that say "You cannot be glad when you are sad, so be happy: buy this, do that, go here, go there and you will have a moment of happiness, during which you can forget your sorrow and your pain!" That's the way we live.

But not Paul and Pastor Storm! What was their secret? We're they naive? Did they live sheltered lives - hardly!

We know about Paul being "hard-pressed... perplexed... persecuted.... and struck down..." He experienced more than his share of sorrow and pain, failure and hardship. Yet, he was able to say "give thanks in all circumstances..."

Pastor Storm, I'm sure, saw enough grief and suffering to freeze the blood, yet he wrote this amazing hymn.

So what is their "secret" to gratitude; to not becoming bitter or cynical? How did they resist the temptation to live with selective senility, remembering only the good stuff? I really have to know because I live in fear that negative things will overtake me, and I'll become bitter and cynical. But Paul and Pastor Storm apparently didn't live in such a half-alive, fearful way. They were fully alive, fully able to embrace with gratitude all past circumstances good and bad; and in so doing were able to fully embrace, without fear and cynicism, the future and whatever the future had in store for them - good or bad. They, unlike me, didn't live in fear or denial. That’s the way I am tempted to live. That's why I have to know their secret!

Paul tells us his "secret" in 2 Corinthians 4:10, "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be in our body."

That's it! That's the secret, and for Paul and Pastor Storm it was more than a theological idea. It was a way of life! They knew, and trusted, and believed, that joy and sorrow really belong together; that gladness and sadness are never separate; that mourning and dancing are a part of the same movement. We don’t have a God with a hidden agenda who inflicts us with pain and leaves it up to us to discover a concealed divine plan. We have a God in Jesus Christ who jumps into our pain and grief with us in Jesus Christ and brings that which we cannot bring about on our own – his redeeming presence.

The cross is the symbol of our faith. The cross is the proclamation of the truth that in the death of Jesus, God takes on all of your pain; takes in all of your sorrow; takes on your failure and weakness; your sin and sadness; into himself - and he makes it his own – and he comes out the other end!

The cross invites us to trust that God is present even in the worst of times; to raise up hope in the midst of despair; to trust in resurrection where we see only death. The call to gratitude is a call to trust that every moment of living and dying is claimed and included in Jesus' cross - a cross that eventually opens up into new life.

We can hear it in Paul words in 2 Corinthians, "hard pressed but not crushed... perplexed, but not in despair... persecuted but not abandoned... struck down but not destroyed... carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be in our body."

It's such a temptation to sweep the bad stuff under the rug and to think only about the good things that please. But by so doing, I prevent myself from discovering the joy that lives beneath the sorrow; the peace hidden in the midst of conflict; the strength of God that becomes visible in my weakness - all of it accomplished through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know what? The "secret" of the cross has empowered that young adolescent of long ago who still lives within this 59 year old man, to nowadays even sing along with Pastor August Ludvig Storm of the Swedish Salvation Army of 1891 when he sang:

"Thanks for tears... Thanks for pain... Thanks for sorrow... Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,

Thanks through all eternity!"

In the cross of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, every single last circumstance of our lives shall be redeemed! And that, my friends, is truly something for which to give God thanks!