The eleventh month is bracketed by two holidays, one of which is ecclesiastical (churchly), yet relates to what has become a popular secular holiday, and the other, civil, yet relates closely to our life of faith. The holidays of which I speak are All Saints Day and Thanksgiving Day. Both are eclipsed in popularity by Christmas, whose secular observance starts earlier each year, but both are widely celebrated, especially if we consider All Saints Day to be a cognate of Halloween.

At first glance, it may seem that these two holidays have little in common, except for the autumnal colors of their decorations and a preponderance of pumpkins, either carved as jack o’ lanterns for Halloween or baked into pies for Thanksgiving. Yet, both All Saints Day and Thanksgiving observances are rooted deeply in the assertion that we have been richly blessed by God, both in the lives of the people we’ve been given to know and to love (All Saints), and through the sustenance God continually provides (Thanksgiving).

Thanksgiving is a word fraught with Christian significance. It appears at least 16 times in the Old Testament and 12 times in the New Testament. Even more significant is the meaning it’s acquired in church usage. The word translated as “thanksgiving” in the NT is the Greek eucharistia, the source of the word, “Eucharist,” which is a term we use to describe the sacrament of Holy Communion. Each Sunday we gather to worship, we share a thanksgiving meal with our brothers and sisters in Christ, both in our own congregation, and wherever Christians gather around the Lord’s table. Our role in the holy supper is to give God thanks for the gift of his Son who died for us and comes to us in the meal. Though the sacred meal we share pales in terms of quantity when compared with the meals we enjoy on Thanksgiving Day, Christ pours himself out in the Eucharist, forgiving our sins, promising us eternal life, and uniting us as one body in him. We more can we offer in gratitude for God’s abundant blessings than our thanks and praise?

Likewise, the core of our All Saints observance carries over into our weekly Christian worship. We honor the faithful departed with flowers, candles, and prayers as we lovingly remember their record of Christian service. We experience a remarkable unity with our beloved dead what we gather around the Lord’s table. The sacrament is a foretaste of the feast to come, a glimpse, taste, and proleptic experience of the heavenly banquet our Lord prepares for those he loves. Just as the Eucharist binds us together with Christians in every place when we receive Christ’s body and blood, it also unites us with the faithful of every time. Until the resurrection, we will never be closer to our departed loved ones than when we participate in the Paschal feast. Christ unites the living and the dead by his cross and resurrection, spanning the chasm between heaven and earth. Just as each Sunday becomes a little Thanksgiving meal, so does each Sunday become a little All Saints observance.

While November might seem to us to be four weeks of gray skies and cool, damp weather, punctuated by a veritable hogathon towards the end of the month, it is a month that is truly significant. We begin and end the eleventh month with grateful praise and joyful thanksgiving, two central aspects of year ‘round Christian worship.

In Jesus’ name,

Pastor Robert M. Mountenay