Friends: Holidays are seasonal fun, but thanks, truth, and Jesus are never-ending.  Happy Thanksgiving. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #941

November 26, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Thankful All the Time

By Bob Walters

“Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are shadows of the things to come; the reality however, is found in Christ.” – Apostle Paul, Colossians 2:16-17

“The Holidays” are upon us – Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year – and I love this line about “let no one judge you by what you eat or drink.”        

Whether we go “over the river and through the woods” to grandmother’s house,  revel in the “hap-happiest season of all,” or renew an “auld acquaintance [we] forgot,” we’re lined up for five weeks of frivolity, kicking off with Thanksgiving this week.

You may have noticed that this year is a short yuletide season. Thanksgiving falls on its latest possible day, November 28, leaving a compressed, four-week sprint to Christmas on Wednesday, December 25. Clear the dishes and hang those stockings.

(Given the short season and momentary mild weather, I’m hanging Christmas lights on the house before Thanksgiving this year. We’ll light them, properly, on Friday.)

It was 1941 when Congress declared the American “Thanksgiving Day” – which dates back variously to the Pilgrims, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln – to be the fourth Thursday of November. By 1941, commercial Christmas had coalesced around the Yule celebration and, driven by the pecuniary interests of major retailers, the maximum “shopping days ‘til Christmas” were preserved.

Now, what’s all this about the Apostle Paul and religious festivals, celebrations, and Sabbaths?  His letter to the Colossians gives great, succinct direction for living a Christian life, freed from the written codes of the Old Covenant (see Col 2:14).  It is a key bit of Christianity – of being and living like a Christian – to think like a Christian.

In both the old laws of Israel or the perennial superstitions of pagans, temporal remembrances and “religious” rites were demanded. But that’s not how Christians roll. That’s not what Jesus calls for in the New Testament, where there are no demands for festivals, feasts, holy places, or observant times. I mean, we all celebrate, but the Bible never calls on Christians to do such things. Jesus, you see, is true light, not a shadow.

What Jesus calls us to is full and abundant life with Him (John 10:10), and teaches that He himself, Jesus Christ, is “Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, Luke 6:1-5).  Christian Sabbath – our rest and our peace – is Jesus, always and everywhere, starting with the love in our hearts and the faith and hope of our minds.

Jesus is with us 24/7 as our souls are animated by the Holy Spirit. Christians have different words of expressing these realities, but what is always the same is the totality of God’s love and Jesus’s grace, for everyone (John 3:16).  Jesus didn’t come to save only the Jews; Jesus came to save and to be with His people all the time. 

His presence with us is a benefit, not a burden, and we are under no law to celebrate anything because a written regulation says so. That the U.S. government designates a dozen federal “holidays” provides calendar structure, not demand for obeisance.  That’s what government does: it organizes worldly things. Faith is our own.

Jesus, you see, gives us a continuing and eternal template for faith, hope, love … and thanks. We are thankful because, in reality, Jesus is with us always. Let’s eat.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that truth and reality have no time frame.