They taught us about the first Thanksgiving in elementary school. You know the story of how in the fall of 1621 a group of Wampanoag joined the English people who settled at what’s today Plymouth, Massachusetts, to celebrate the harvest. First Thanksgiving? We Floridians know better.

I found this online at the Castillo de San Marcos site: “On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 800 Spanish settlers founded the city of St. Augustine in Spanish La Florida. As soon as they were ashore, the landing party celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving. Afterward, Menéndez laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied the site.”

I am struck that both thanksgivings involved eating a meal together. The Bible contains religious celebrations where sharing a meal is a central feature. After God gave the covenant to the Hebrews, Moses and seventy elders ate and drank in the presence of the Lord (Exodus 24:11).

You may be accustomed to saying a grace or prayer of thanksgiving before beginning to eat, but have you ever thought about the meal itself being a thanksgiving? That’s fundamental to Christian worship. Another name for Holy Communion is Eucharist or thanksgiving. There is a long prayer of thanksgiving associated with the meal, but the meal, the bread and wine, is itself a of thanksgiving.

This thanksgiving you, your friends and family will be eating in the presence of God. The meal itself will be an act of thanksgiving. Something to think about before the football games start.

Wayne

Please click on the site listed here to enjoy this beautiful hymn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T810WAEI48c&authuser=0