Genuine Gratitude Requires a Person
The reason that real gratefulness often flows from our hearts at the speed of thick mud is that we base our gratitude on the interesting features of the gifts rather than the infinite quality of the Giver. Jesus understood this better than anyone, since the typical responses to his miracles were bucolic wide eyes and gum-deep smiles, an insatiable hunger for the sensational and a neurotic passion for free health care.
When Christ healed ten lepers one day, nine ran off to the village market, eager to get back into Galilean politics now that their skin was no longer falling off in chunks. Only one man returned to thank Christ for the healing; just one man in ten realized that the wonder was not his new skin but the God-man who had fixed it. Jesus was the wonder. Standing next to Christ, even the glory of a glowing epidermis dimmed. Gratitude requires a personal object—and if thankfulness is to be deep and enduring, it must be pinned to Someone better than a changeful, error-prone human friend, good intentions aside.
All this goes to show that gratitude requires a person, and ultimately, an infallible person. The nine lepers who ran away saw past gratitude; for them, physical healing was the ultimate end—and so they found no necessity for thanks. But this was incoherent, for by its very nature, gratitude is a personal sensation, and one woven into the shape of the world. No one ever says thank you to a gift, save for the very young (or those who have taken relativistic thought to its ultimate conclusions, and hum tunes in praise of Beer, Sex, and the Lottery).
No one opens a birthday gift and says, “O, thank you, Spalding!” as if the basketball, in its grippy orange glory, had hitchhiked his way to the front door. Neither do cognizant people seriously sing the anthem, “Red, red wine,” as if the wine could help being red, or being alcoholic. Basketball, wine, books, coffee: despite the beauty of their personalities, these products do not manufacture themselves. Gratitude requires a personal object—and if thankfulness is to be deep and enduring, it must be pinned to Someone better than a changeful, error-prone human friend, good intentions aside.
I am singling out “gratitude,” but this argument holds true for all the sensations in life that are really beautiful and good. Peace, love, joy, wonder—sought as ends unto themselves, they shrivel up and become unobtainable. Repentance is this way too—and it is worth mentioning specifically because, in my experience, repentance often leads to the laugh-out-loud relief of praise.
Like gratitude, repentance needs a personal object—and in the causality of Christ, we should become deeply grateful to the One before whom we repent. We cannot grovel before a list of our sins and beg forgiveness from ourselves, but we may kneel before Christ, and he responds. He forgives and soothes, and the ensuing freedom bubbles over in gratitude. In this way repentance often paves the way for thanksgiving, as we see over and over again in David’s psalms.
So, Thanksgiving is here. But is it really? The strength of our joy will depend upon whom our gratitude is aimed at—so aim it at Jesus. And if necessary, repent to clear the airwaves for your praise. Otherwise, “Thanksgiving” is merely a cultural construct even stupider than “Turkey Day.”
We had better thank Christ. Direct your contrition and gratitude to Jesus, and your heart will feel his magnetism. Direct it anywhere else, and you have all the soul-authenticity of a former leper streaking it for the grocery store.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Real Thanksgiving? I Have My Reason...
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3 comments:
Sometimes that seems like the hardest part: Remembering where our focus should be.
While I agree with the underlying assumption of your post, mainly that our gratitude must be given to the One from whom we have received the freedom to be grateful, I do question your interpretation of the story of the ten lepers. When Jesus heals them, does he not order them to go to the temple and offer the sacrifices? If this is so, then the 1st century Jewish mind would understand such as giving gratitude to God under the Law. Thus, the other nine lepers were grateful and showed as much in their own Jewish understanding...I think we may be a little hard on them from this side of the Resurrection event. Just a thought. I would be interested to hear what you thought, Ariel.
This is funny, well written -- and thought provoking. And besides that you have done an amazing job on the entire site! Much to explore here.
Thanks, Kim
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