To whom are we thankful?

America’s Thanksgiving holiday is deeply rooted in our national identity. Unlike the citizens of captive nations who are forced to publicly express faux gratitude to a leader, party, or the state, Thanksgiving for Americans is an expression of gratitude for the sovereign hand of Providence.

The difference is rooted in Jesus’ counsel to “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s.” There are things that are appropriately rendered to government authorities, including respect for their public service, obedience to the law, and appropriate taxes (see Romans 13).

But unto God alone are we to render the ultimate honor, allegiance, and thankfulness. It is God who is the Provider of all things. It is God who is the driving force behind the seasons and the harvest. He is truly, as the Declaration of Independence acknowledges, “Nature’s God.”

Dictators and totalitarian governments recognize that there is a natural human impulse, a religious impulse, for created men and women to pay tribute to—to offer expressions of thanksgiving—to the Creator at times of the harvest. Thus, these atheistic leaders attempt to deflect attention away from the transcendent and supernatural, claiming honor for themselves.

For example, Germans and other Europeans have long had localized expressions of Christian worship and thanksgiving during the harvest. This is an expression of gratitude for today’s blessing and a prayer for future provision. But during the communist era, the East German government taught its children that it was the solidarity of the workers’ movement that could overcome nature and provide the harvest. Schoolchildren were forced to memorize this communist rhyme: “Without god and without sun, we will get the harvest done.”

Koreans have traditions of harvest thanksgiving that include travel to one’s ancestral home and reverence for one’s forbears. In recent decades, South Koreans have made this thanksgiving holiday the busiest travel season of the year as families gather to celebrate. As many South Koreans are now Christians, the Church has made an explicit effort to acknowledge God’s protection and provision as central to the national sense of gratitude.

But, in North Korea, holidays such as this have been appropriated by the twisted communist ideology that idolizes the Kim family. North Korea has developed a cult of personality around the Kims and a quasi-religious worldview called Juche. Veneration of the Kim family and the Communist Party have taken over as central to any expression of gratitude. Indeed, in places such as North Korea where the secret police are always watching, it is necessary that subjects publicly express their adoration of the leaders and the system lest they be singled out as dissidents or traitors.

How different from America. The first Thanksgiving event, in 1621, was an appreciation of a good harvest after a dreadful year of loss and suffering. The Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts in November 1620 after an exhausting sea voyage. They arrived too late to plant a crop and barely eked out a living through the winter and spring. Nearly half of them died between the voyage and the subsequent months of hardship. Thus, those who survived that first year were thankful for their blessings, such as decent weather, a good harvest, and assistance from Native Americans on agriculture. They were also grateful that they had finally found a place, after leaving first England and then the Netherlands, where they could freely and publicly worship in accord with the dictates of their conscience.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation reminds us of why the day is so important. It is because we are often tempted to forget where our blessings come from. As Lincoln wrote, “The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.”

President Lincoln was clear that he was setting apart “the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” Lincoln concluded that prayer should be offered for the “interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”

This Thanksgiving, such action and prayer are appropriate. We rightly express gratitude for our many blessings, render service to the needy who are in our sphere of influence, and offer prayers for the “full enjoyment of peace” at home and abroad.