Thanksgiving

We are grateful for love. When we experience it, we become part of something eternal. There are not many things like that, and it resides in the highest realm as well as here. So the greatest of all experiences is this all-inclusive virtue.

Even before the foundation of the world—even before we existed, God loved us and in his mind’s eye gave his Son for us, fulfilling that love in due time, commending his love toward us. Maybe for a good person someone would go out of his way to do something good; maybe he would even give his own life, but God gave his Son’s life on a cross for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:7-11).

The loaf and cup point to the greatest thing there ever was or will be, even greater than the wedding ring on the finger of these hands—hands like the ones that had spikes driven through them because of us and for us. We may not be prepared for such love, but we can be grateful for it. In this quiet observance we adopt a higher standard for our own living for those beyond ourselves.