This is a Christmas season like no other in living memory. Time reports that “the US COVID-19 outbreak is worse than it’s ever been.” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned in an interview yesterday that, following Thanksgiving travel, the US could see “a surge upon a surge.” But even amidst the pain and tragedies of the pandemic and the uncertainties of our political future, the essential truth of Christmas remains unchanged. Jesus is still Immanuel,
This week, we’re discovering reasons for genuine thanksgiving. Not a generic sense of gratitude such as secular Americans may briefly feel tomorrow, but a true lifestyle of praise and thanks to the God who is our Father.
In writing on thanksgiving during a pandemic, my purpose is not to be naïve but to suggest that choosing an attitude of gratitude even in the darkest days is best for us. It honors the One who made us, loves us, and redeems us by his grace. And it shows a suffering world that our hope is based not on our suffering world but on our loving Lord.
Scripture calls us to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). We are to “give” thanks, not “feel” thanks. The holiday is Thanksgiving, not Thanksfeeling.
Philosopher R. J. Snell notes that such tolerance has become highly intolerant in recent years. In fact, our culture has devolved to the point that it condemns any perspective which represses an individual’s instinctual desires.
Happiness is far less the result of our circumstances than our response to them. Psychologists refer to the “hedonic treadmill” as “the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” However, we were made for more than happiness.
In what could be the motto for our day, Hamlet claimed, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” We have been taught that “truth” is the result of our subjective interpretation of our subjective experiences. Your mind processes your senses differently than my mind processes mine. As a result, there can be no such thing as objective truth, only “your” truth and “my” truth. The fallacy of this reasoning becomes apparent the moment we recognize that those who reject absolute truth do so absolutely.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recently stated during a keynote address to the Federalist Society that “For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry, and it can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed.”
Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist notes: "The energy in Jesus’ teachings is about our being prepared: being prepared to die, but, in the meantime and more importantly, being prepared to live. You don’t want to miss a moment of it—your life—because life is so precious and it’s so fleeting."
Are you "prepared to live" today?
We can choose the self-centered existentialistic ethos of our culture or we can choose to serve the common good by serving together. Here are three biblical steps to a better future:
