THE PILGRIMS FAITH & OUR FIRST THANKSGIVING
We are in the Season of Thanksgiving again this year. And as we move into this celebrated week, few of us remember what this American holiday is all about.
In 1620 a group of freedom seeking religious people sailed from England and landed in what we now call Massachusetts. As they landed at Plymouth in early winter with no living quarters in a harsh new world, daily they prayed and gave thanksgiving to God for all that they did have. The first winter was devastating. Of the 110 Pilgrims and crew who left England, only about 50 survived the cold and hunger of that first winter. By the following summer, the neighboring Indians showed them how to plant and hunt for local game. By harvest time that year in 1621, a celebration was planned and later published in several books that are still in print today.
They really didn’t have much to be thankful for, or did they? Christian religious freedom is everything for the heartfelt believer. According to the writings of Edward Winslow in his 1621 account “A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth”, and Governor William Bradford for his two books, “History of Plymouth Plantation” and “Mourt’s Relation”, we have an excellent snapshot of the misfortunes and blessings of 1620 to 1621. And we have also a picture of a truly devout group of Christians.
These deeply pious Pilgrims, called Puritans, believed the Old Testament Mosaic Feasts were binding on Gentiles as well as Jews. Governor Bradford was inspired by the Biblical Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Feast Days of Moses. There are seven prescribed feast days in all; the first four are in the spring and the last three are in the fall of every year. The first spring feast, Passover, as we all know, was fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Jesus. The next three spring feasts are 2. Unleavened Bread, 3. First Fruits, and 4. Weeks, which we call Pentecost. All four feast days were fulfilled perfectly in the early days of the church in 30 AD. The final three fall Feasts are 5. Trumpets, 6. Day of Atonement, and 7. Sukkot, called Booths or Tabernacles. (These have yet to be prophetically fulfilled, and to understand their meaning look at last month’s newsletter for THE SEVEN FEASTS chart.
I believe that this first festival celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621 was to match the timing and the meaning of the Feast of Booths, the last of the fall feasts. It is a week-long celebration in which the Jews remember and give thanks for their deliverance from bondage in Egypt.
The directions for this feast is described in Leviticus 23:34-36. “…the Feast of Booths for seven days to Yahweh. On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work of any kind. For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to Yahweh. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to Yahweh; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.” It was a time of public scripture reading, rejoicing in Yahweh for His deliverance, and a time to celebrate and relax with your family.
A repentant and thankful people is what we should be. As the last three feasts signal the soon coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, so the changing religious beliefs and morals indicate a soon coming shift in America. I seek religious freedom and liberty just as the first American Pilgrims did.
For me, Thanksgiving is not just another holiday, but a deeply religious one. Our great country was founded on the principles of religious freedom. Many died that first winter from the cold and the effects of starvation.
I want to lift my hands in praise to God publicly, to pray over my meals in restaurants, and speak my mind concerning God’s love and coming judgments. I want my schools to be free of secretive and subliminal anti God teachings. I want my grandchildren to have better choices to choose God than I had growing up. I want my newscasters to have a root of decency that is grounded in scripture and the teachings of Jesus.
I am not asking for too much. But a forgetful church is bound to lose those values quickly. In Paul’s letter written in Romans 1:21-22 we read, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…”
Again, the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Today the church hardly remembers prayer or how to be thankful to God. It’s not surprising then that the Pilgrims set aside a special time to give thanks to God for His provisions and care no matter what difficulties they were enduring.
The grateful Pilgrims declared a three-day feast, starting on December 13, 1621, to thank God and to celebrate with their Indian friends. While this was not the first Thanksgiving in America (thanksgiving services were held in Virginia as early as 1607), it was America’s first Thanksgiving Festival. In my copy of the book Mourt’s Relation, first published in 1622 we read…
“Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as… served the company almost a week… Many of the Indians [came] amongst us and… their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought… And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are… far from want…I never in my life remember a more seasonable year than we have enjoyed here…”
This season, share your thankfulness for God with others. Your family might have a question posed to each one of them at dinner, “What are you thankful for this last year?”
I am thankful for my God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
I am praying for you daily! Shalom!
Pastor David Gonzalez
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