From the director

With Countless Gifts of Love

“And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.” (Leviticus 25:10)

This is the time of year that we sing in our worship services the familiar hymn:

“Now thank we all our God.
With heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things hath done,
in whom this world rejoices;

who, from our mother’s arms,
hath blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.”

(“Now Thank We All Our God,” Martin Rinkart, c. 1636, Trans. Catherine Winkworth, Presbyterian Hymnal, #555)

In the 1600s the Rev. Martin Rinkart wrote this Thanksgiving hymn. The year after he wrote this hymn, disease ravished the Rev. Rinkart’s community in Eilenburg, Germany, and 8,000 people died. Rinkart buried 4,000 of the 8,000 people. Can you imagine that? In the midst of all of that, he must have been devastated. You don’t bury 4,000 people without feeling sadness and grief. What a very faithful and very depressing task to undertake.

At this time of Thanksgiving, the Rev. Rinkart’s hymn reminds us of the countless gifts of love that God has given to us, even in the midst of hardship and tragedy. We have been blessed with so much that the only response seems to be one of gratitude. We have been blessed with so many things that this Thanksgiving, we can’t help but thank God, for God’s love and care of us.