1
Chronicles 16:34 (et al)
National
Day of Thanksgiving, 2011
“Giving
Thanks for Hesed”
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love
endures forever.”
This
simple and common prayer of thanks is found numerous times in the Old
Testament – from 1 Chronicles to the Psalms to Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Christians often use it today as a meal prayer. You've probably
heard these words many times.
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love
endures forever.”
I want
to focus on one word today – not so much the word “thanks”, but
the word “Steadfast Love”. At least that's how it's often
translated into English. But the Hebrew word behind it is “hesed”.
Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His “hesed” endures
forever.
God's
hesed, his steadfast love, is also translated as his loving-kindness,
his goodness, or his mercy. God's hesed is the rationale for giving
thanks in so many of these Old Testament prayers. They gave thanks
because of his hesed.
God
shows his hesed by what he does – saving his people from their
enemies, from disaster, from famine and plague. He shows his hesed
by bringing them into a good land, a land flowing with milk and
honey, and promising it to them forever. And so they prayed,
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love
endures forever.”
God's
hesed is undeserved. It is pure and free gift. Think about it, we
don't really thank our employers for a wage – we earned it, and it
is rightfully ours. You might thank your boss for your paycheck, but
you'd just be polite. It's not expected. But a gift is a different
story. A gift elicits thanks. Maybe a word, maybe a hand-written
note. How much more does the free gift of God merit our thanks! We
don't do anything to deserve his hesed.
In fact,
we do the opposite. We deserve anything but loving-kindness, or
steadfast love, or mercy or goodness. Our sins deserve punishment,
now and forever.
What's
worse, is that we're not even all that thankful most of the time for
what we do get. We take God's gifts, even his hesed, for granted.
We act like we deserve them, like he owes all this to us. We are
spoiled children, but the spoiling is our own fault, not his. We are
ungrateful and selfish and thoughtless and, well, sinners.
But
that's what makes hesed so much more amazing. Steadfast love would
be a whole lot easier to give to people who deserved it. But to your
enemies? To people who hate you? To people who want your job and
want you dead? To love them?
For God
so loved the world, that he sent his only Son. For God so loved you,
that he sent Jesus. Jesus who is the ultimate expression of God's
hesed. Jesus, to whom the law and the prophets testify. Jesus, who
brings what the Old Testament calls hesed, and the New Testament
calls grace.
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His grace endures
forever.”
A bunch
of Lutherans in 1919 thought that God's Grace was important enough to
name a church after it. And ever since, we've been preaching God's
grace in Jesus Christ here in this place. And like the hesed of the
Old Testament, the grace of the New Testament, all rooted in and
flowing from Jesus Christ, endures forever.
His
hesed endures forever. Because he, Jesus, endures forever. Because
his word of promise endures forever. Because his Gospel is eternal.
Because his life, once given up, can never be taken again.
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His hesed endures
forever.”
Hesed
that endures over against your sins, and mine. Hesed that doesn't
count all that against you. Hesed that points you to the cross of
Jesus and says, here, sinner, is your salvation. Free and clear, it
is finished. You don't bring anything to the table, Jesus did it all
for you. You don't deserve this free gift, but receive it in faith
and be thankful.
Of
course, God's hesed is so great that he doesn't just stop with
salvation. He gives and gives and gives – blessings too numerous
to count. All these, just as undeserved. Food. Clothing. Shelter.
Friends and family. Your health. Your earthly wealth. Your
reasons and all your senses. Your reputation. Good government.
Peace. And those are just for starters.
But
hesed always brings you back to Christ, the greatest and fullest
expression of God's undeserved love for you. The basis for these and
all other gifts he gives. He's been giving them since word one of
creation. And he'll be giving them into the countless ages of
eternity. For even after this world passes away, after the judgment
day and the glorious kingdom is ushered in, God's hesed will still
endure, in Jesus Christ our Lord. He'll still be giving good things.
Undeserved things. Steadfastly, forever.
And for
that, we give him thanks, today and always.
“Oh
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love
endures forever.”
In Jesus
Christ, Amen.
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