Now Thank We All Our God
I was searching for the perfect Thanksgiving devotion when I received this one from Josh Wortham. Josh’s church is singing “Now Thank We All Our God” at Chester UMC this Sunday.
Martin Rinkart wrote the words to this hymn. He lived in Ellenburg, Germany, during multiple invasions, wars, refugee crises, the plague and overwhelming loss in his community and personal life. He was a German Lutheran pastor who lived from 1586 to 1649.
A good part of his ministry was spent during the Thirty Years’ War, when Ellenburg was invaded and conquered multiple times. Refugees caused overcrowding and famine. Without enough to even feed themselves, Martin and his family took people in need into their home and cared for them. In the midst of this darkness, it could hardly get any worse. Then the plague came.
The bubonic plague swept through Ellenburg, and soon Martin was the only pastor still alive in the entire city. Performing over 4,000 funerals, he sometimes conducted up to 50 a day as people succumbed to the sickness. He lost friends and even his wife to this horrible disease. In the midst of all this loss, Martin would gather his household around a table with only scraps of food and pray this prayer:
Now thank we all our God with heart and soul and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,
To keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills of this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
The Son and Spirit blest, who reign in highest heaven
The one eternal God, whom heaven and earth adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
May this be our Thanksgiving prayer. May Thanksgiving Day 2023 be wonderful for you and your family. May we all remember Martin Rinkart and sing this hymn as we celebrate Thanksgiving. “For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.”
Prayer – (Use the words of this hymn or sing it together with your family.) Amen!
By the Rev. Tommy Herndon
Images: Adam Winger & Diliara Garifullina, courtesy of Unsplash