Before the Protestant Reformation took place, there were an abundance of holy days celebrated by the Catholic Church.
Our word holiday comes from “holy day.” If one were to include the Sabbath within the holy days, there were approximately 147 holy days annually that were celebrated by the Catholic Church. As you might expect, many problems arose from this practice.
The Reformers saw the problems that were occurring during these holy day celebrations, such as drunkenness, violence, lack of production and damage done to food supplies due to gluttonous behavior. They also recognized that the physical consequences were due to the spiritual problems that come from idleness. In response, they sought to eliminate holidays. In fact, many Puritans would even have done away with Christmas. It’s hard to imagine a joyful winter season without Christmas, so I’m grateful that they didn’t accomplish this goal.
One of the reasons that they did not succeed is because the Reformers began to call for holidays to recognize the special providences of God in their lives. Thanksgiving was this kind of holiday.
In early America, we did not have an annual Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, what we find is that the people were calling for days of recognition for specific blessings, such as a successful harvest or a safe voyage. They never appointed any exact date for such a celebration, but they did have Thanksgiving celebrations often enough. This practice also found its way out of local celebrations and into national calls for thanksgiving from leaders, such as George Washington.
Still, the celebrations were called for after periods of specific blessing and were not simply annual holidays.
The problem with having an annual day of thanksgiving is that we often fail to see the things for which we should give thanks. On top of that, it lends itself to issues, such as those the Reformers were fighting against. Our solution for this should be to recognize the reasons that the Puritans were instituting the days of thanksgiving. It was instituted because they were acknowledging the providence of God in relation to their own labors. It was understood that God was faithful to bless that which was done in faithfulness to his command.
I have no desire to abolish our current holidays. While I can appreciate the need for reformation, I also appreciate that the Puritans saw our need for a day of thanksgiving. I appreciate that we have an annual day for the recognition of blessings and a call to give thanks. Despite our propensity for ingratitude, this kind of day can serve as a reminder that we have a duty to be thankful and much to be thankful for.
At the heart of Thanksgiving is a great paradox. On the one hand, there can be no thanks given for the harvest if one has planted nothing.
On the other hand, our thanks is not given to ourselves for our labor; rather, our thanks is given to God for His blessing upon our efforts.
Jeremy Wiggins writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, jeremywiggins87@gmail.com.