If you listen closely to the lyrics of the classic Christmas song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, you will notice that the lyrics are not that uplifting. A line like “someday soon we all will be together if the fates allow; until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” signifies that something profoundly discordant with the promises of the Christmas season was going on. This song was indeed written in the throes of the second world war, at a time when American service-men and -women were scattered around all corners of the globe when families really felt as if the potential of any future Christmases together was dependent on the will of the fates. The version of this song that we know today is actually a second, more hopeful version written after the first was rejected for fear that it would lower the morale of the American people at a time of war; and troops on troop transport ships were forbidden to listen to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas for the same reason! The discordance between a season like Christmas and a time of horrific warfare was, and still remains, a reminder that all is not right with the world, so we wait longingly for Christ to come and make all things right.

I am fully aware that we are only on the doorstep of the Advent season and not yet in Christmas, but in many ways, a similar discordance between World War II and the season of Christmas is present in our celebrations of Thanksgiving this year. While we are certainly not facing hardships like those faced during World War II, we are celebrating Thanksgiving in strange ways, at what seems like a strange time to emphasize thankfulness. To name one difficulty, the specter of the coronavirus hangs over our heads, changing long-held traditions, keeping some of us more isolated, and reminding us of all that we have lost this year. All is not right with this world.

Recognizing the wide gap between how we imagine things ought to be at a time like Thanksgiving and where we actually are provides a profound insight into what it means to be a Christian. We exist in the tension between the completed work of Christ and the fulfillment of that completed work of Christ, what so many call “the already, but not yet.” The Christian life is a life of grateful worship for all that God has done for us and will do for us, but not a glossing over of the human condition. In Christ, we lift our hands in thanksgiving because God took our situation seriously enough to make it His own situation, and will come again such that His situation will finally be our own.

A Thanksgiving Prayer (BCP p. 681) 
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love. We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side. We thank you for setting us at tasks that demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments that satisfy and delight us. We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone. Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying through which he conquered death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom. Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things.” Amen.