Reflections on Thanksgiving Day

There is a fierce debate going on among some of my friends and me. The question is, what do you prefer: food or sleep? The significance of this question cannot be overemphasized. Where you fall on this issue could very well determine your success or failure in life. For myself, I most certainly prefer food over sleep. I can marshal arguments from experience and from Scripture to defend my position. Needless to say, I love to eat. It is one of those pleasures in life that I truly cherish—probably more than I should.

Maybe that is one reason why I love Thanksgiving so much. Enjoying a meal with family and loved ones is one of my top five favorite things in the world. This year, our family had a lovely thanksgiving dinner, prepared by a veteran master chef—my mother. It was a lovely meal, and we all stuffed ourselves to our bodies’ delight. It took a couple of hours to recover from the meal. It was that good. (After the meal, I proceeded to move from the table over to the couch, where I collapsed and did not get up for two and a half hours.)

Later on, we watched a movie together, which is something we often do as a family. The movie we watched turned out to be very fitting as a thanksgiving movie. The movie is Les Miserables, starring Liam Neeson and Geoffery Rush. I had seen it once before and was happy to see it again. (I have not seen the musical, nor have I read the book.)

Watching Les Miserables left me thinking about the elusive power of grace. It is difficult to get a handle on exactly why it is so powerful. But its power is unmistakable. In the movie, a single act of grace changes a man’s heart from greedy and despicable to noble and self-sacrificing. The transformation is astounding and inspiring. Grace is so powerful that it strongly affects those who observe it in characters that are fictional and imaginary. Anyone who has seen Les Miserables, or any other such story, has felt this same phenomenon.

But what exactly is grace? It is a sheer act of the will to override the universal law of reciprocity and freely bestow good on an undeserving soul. Reciprocity, which we often view in close relation to justice, says that people ought to enjoy what they deserve. You reap what you sow. The guilty ought to be punished. The virtuous ought to be praised. I submit that this is a law that underwrites the fabric of our universe. Now this law is often broken, but this only gives further evidence for its existence. Why? Because when bad men prosper and good men suffer, we feel that some great violence to the order of the universe has just occurred. We would not feel this if this law did not exist. In fact, the power of the law of reciprocity is so strong that it causes people to question the existence of a Creator.

The problem with the law of reciprocity is that it is limiting. It restrains one’s freedom to give generously to people, since doing good is limited to the merits of others. But this is why grace is so powerful and liberating. It frees someone from the bondage of reciprocity to be able to be generous as he or she so desires. But in order to perform an act of grace, the law of reciprocity must be transgressed. Perhaps this is the source of its power. This is why the main character in Les Miserables is thoroughly transformed when he receives grace. This is why I feel so affected when I see a beautiful act of grace portrayed in a film. It is because a universal law has been transgressed, and happily so. Maybe a better word than “transgressed” is “superseded.” The laws of a higher world have infiltrated our universe, and the effect is profound on all who experience it. When the law of reciprocity is superseded by the freedom of grace, then earth begins to resemble heaven.

It is not surprising, then, what we find when God reveals His character to Moses. The first words Moses hears are, “The Lord God, compassionate and gracious.” The revelation leaves Moses’ face reflecting the brilliance of the grace of God. The rest of the Scriptures tell how this God shows profound grace to undeserving, ungrateful human beings in space and time. He begins by showing His grace to the nation of Israel, and this eventually climaxes and explodes in the greatest act of grace the world has ever witnessed, being so powerful that it spills over into every other nation. It is the grace of God in Jesus Christ, who gave his life that he might give life to all. The grace portrayed in Les Miserables pales in comparison.

The apostle Paul summed it up well. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” We were dead and undeserving. But God is compassionate and gracious. The law of reciprocity demanded our death. But God superseded that law and has given us life. This is grace par excellence.

Thanksgiving is a great idea. Cheers to whoever made thanksgiving a part of the regular calendar of our nation. It is a time for us to be grateful and to remember the good gifts we have been given. It would be a shame to allow a thanksgiving to go by where we fail to be thankful for the marvelous grace of God.