"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all
circumstances,
for this is God's will in Christ Jesus." (1
Thess. 5:16-18)
Did you hear what Paul said? "Give thanks in all circumstances!" Either Paul is incredibly naive and lived a sheltered life; or he knows something that most of the rest of us just don't know.
As a boy growing up in a Swedish Lutheran Congregation I remember the congregation singing this one specific hymn every Thanksgiving appropriately titled "Thanks to God." As I was reflecting for tonight I thought of that hymn. I looked for a copy, but I couldn't find anybody that had it or any hymn-book that contained it. So, I turned to the internet, and I went looking for it there. And low and behold I found it with words and music and everything! And at the click of the mouse I could even sing the words along with the music. So I did! I sang it - and as I sang it old memories and feelings bubbled to the surface of my consciousness and flooded over me!
Now the reason I remember this hymn is because, as a child, there were a couple of lines in that hymn that really puzzled me; a couple of lines that I just didn't understand; things that made no sense to me whatsoever - even made me a little crazy! I remember asking my Sunday School Teacher about them, and I remember him saying, "Joe, there are just some things about God that we don't understand that we must 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.
The words of the first verse go like this:
Thanks to God for my Redeemer,
Thanks for all thou dost provide!
Thanks for times now but a mem'ry,
Thanks for Jesus by my side!
Thanks for pleasant balmy Springtime,
Thanks for dark and stormy Fall!
Thanks for tears by now forgotten,
Thanks for peace within my soul.
I had no problem with most of that except for the line, "Thanks for tears by now forgotten." That really perplexed me! How was I supposed to be thankful for tears? You see, I grew up in an alcoholic home within which there were many conflicts, I had shed a lots of tears; rivers of tears; oceans of tears. I hadn't forgotten my tears. My tears and the wounds that caused them were still very real and very frightening, and I just didn't understand - in my head or in my heart! How could I be thankful to God for such horrible things that I couldn't forget; horrible things that haunted me? How?
There were a couple of more lines in that old hymn that puzzled me: a line in verse 2 says,
"Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure."
The "pleasure" part, "no problem!" But "Thanks for pain?" I didn't get it! How do I thank God for pain - especially when it's unbearable?
And then in verse 3,
"Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow."
I didn't know exactly what "joy" was as a ten year old, but it sure sounded good! But, I knew something about sorrow, and I simply couldn't fathom being thankful for such a gut-wrenching experience as sorrow. 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, about feeling forgotten and left-behind! Tell me somebody, Sunday School teacher, Mom, Grandma, anybody? How do you give thanks for such things? "How can you sing the lines of that old hymn?" You see, I couldn't sing those lines, so I didn't!
Looking back on it I suppose the thing that really bothered me about this old hymn was, even though I couldn't articulate it as a ten year old, 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 to me for some mysterious reason I couldn't 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 as a ten year old, and not I'm about to buy it as a 52 year old!
Pastor August Ludvig Storm of the Swedish Salvation Army of 1891 either was naive and had lived a very sheltered life, or he knew something and was privy to some "secret," that I didn't know.
I don't know, maybe that's one of the reasons why I became a pastor. Maybe it was a part of a quest to discover that secret; that secret that had alluded me; that secret that I desperately wished to know; that answer that would truly fulfill me and enable me to embrace my whole life, not just selected good parts.
The late Henri Nouwen, acclaimed priest, author, speaker, retreat leader tells about two friends who departed after fourteen years from the Daybreak L'Arche Community in Toronto, Canada of which he was Spiritual Director. Nouwen says that these two friends had accomplished much. They had experienced many successes and many 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:
"We are really grateful for all the good things that have happened, for all the beautiful friendships that have developed, for all the hopes that were realized. We simply have to... try to forget the painful moments."
My dear friends, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. 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? If you're anything like me that's probably how you look at it most of the time. Most of us divide up our lives into these two GENERAL categories:
And the goal is, the idea is, the mentality is to accumulate more good memories than bad memories. And if we do, then we say we can truly be thankful.
But that's not what Paul is saying in the verses from Thessalonians. That's not what Pastor August Ludvig Storm of the Swedish Salvation Army of 1891 is telling us 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; messages 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. That's the way we think.
But not our two friends! What was their secret? Did they just not know any better? We're they naive? Did they live sheltered lives? Well hardly!
Paul talks of being "hard-pressed... perplexed... persecuted.... and struck down..." He experienced more than his share of sorrow and pain, failure and hardship. In fact the scales probably tipped in that direction for him. Yet he was able to say "give thanks in all circumstances..." How could he do that?
Pastor August Ludvig Storm served in the Swedish Salvation Army in 1891, and I'm sure Pastor Storm saw and experienced more than his share suffering in his ministry. And in the face of it, he was able to write a hymn that expressed thanksgiving for the good and the bad. How did he do that?
So what is their "secret?" How can they be thankful to God for all the circumstances of their lives, especially since they had apparently accumulated so many things on that negative side. What's their secret to gratitude? What's their secret to not becoming bitter or cynical? I really have to know! I really have to know because I live in fear and denial so much of the time that negative things will happen and begin to pile up, 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. And that's the way I want 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 be in our body."
That's it! That's the secret! And for Paul and Pastor August Ludvig Storm of the Swedish Salvation Army of 1891, it was more than a theological idea . It was a way of life!
They knew, and they trusted, and they 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.
You see the cross is the main symbol of our faith. The cross is the proclamation of the truth that in the death of Jesus, God takes all of your pain; takes all of your sorrow; all of your failure and all of your weakness; all of your sin and all of your sadness into himself - and makes it his own!
The cross invites us to trust that God is present even in the worst of times; to find hope where we know only pain; 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 led him to new life. His cross will lead us to new life!
We can hear it in Paul words, "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 memories under the rug and to think only about the good things that please me. By doing so, 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 ten year boy who still lives within this 52 year old man to nowadays even sing along with Pastor August Ludvig Storm of the Swedish Salvation Army of 1891 when he sang:
In the cross of Jesus Christ all the circumstances of our lives shall be redeemed! And that, my friends, is truly something for which to give God thanks!