Something deep inside me is stirred whenever I open a hymnal and sing—in my heart or aloud—the hymns of its “Thanksgiving” section. Some of them five centuries old, they remain timeless in telling the bigger story of being thankful. One bigger than the annual “turkey feast” day we have in our times.
Take this one by an unknown Dutch patriot, which celebrated the freedom of the Netherlands from a century of Spanish domination. It found its way to a collection of Dutch songs in 1626.
We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing, now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.
More wartime—and unimaginable human suffering--birthed another. Europe groaned under a Thirty-Year War (1618-1648), during whose latter years a German lad, Martin Rinkart, was called to be a pastor in Eilenberg, Germany. The walled town turned out to be a city of refuge amid terrible bloodshed and plague. He would spend the last 32 years of his life ministering to the sick and suffering. And he would write the hymn that begins:
Now thank we all our God/With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mothers' arms, Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.
Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) had a warm-cold-hot spiritual experience. A Lutheran pastor's son, he studied for the ministry but rationalistic influences extinguished his youthful faith. Then in his late thirties, a serious illness drove him back to devotion to God. About that time he wrote a 17-stanza poem titled “Peasant's Song,” inspired by a harvest festival in Northern Germany. Shortened, it became popular throughout the country. An English translator provided the lyrics that start, “We plow the fields and scatter,/The good seed on the land,/But it is fed and watered/By God's almighty hand.” The song shifts to gratitude with this verse:
We thank thee, then, O Father,/For all things bright and good,
The seedtime and the harvest,/Our life, our health, our food;
No gifts have we to offer,/For all Thy love imparts,
But that which Thou desirest,/Our humble, thankful hearts.
Born about the time Claudius died, Henry Alford (1820-1871) in 1844 offered this Thanksgiving hymn:
Come, ye thankful people, come,/Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in,/Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide/For our wants to be supplied:
Come to God's own temple, come,/Raise the song of harvest home.
While the first verse celebrates the harvest, the next three refer to the final harvest of God's people. This is the final verse:
Even so, Lord, quickly come/to Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou thy people in,/Free from sorrow, free from sin;
There, forever purified,/In thy presence to abide:
Come, with all Thine Angels, come,/Raise the glorious harvest home. Amen.
I'm aware that some folks consider classic hymns antiquated and useless. I dare to disagree. They're full of theology and bursting with awe and humility, conveying worthy thanks to the God who sustains us.
A choir and beautiful scenery celebrate Alford's harvest hymn in this You-Tube:
ComeYe Thankful People Come - Henry Alford - HD - Bing video
The one that follows is also worth singing-along-with.
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