These people, though I seriously doubt they knew what would come of it at the time, were celebrating a brand new holiday to be called Thanksgiving. I doubt these people foresaw a great nation springing from their humble colony. I doubt they thought about the traditions they were setting forth. And I am positive it never crossed their mind that the fourth Friday in November would become the biggest hope for retailers to turn a profit in the fourth quarter. I think they were just thankful they were alive and able to eat.
But what brought these people here? What brought farmers, merchants, laborers, and their families to leave the last traces of civilization across the sea and settle in a wild new world inhabited by a completely unknown (and possibly unfriendly) people? It's actually a pretty simple answer. Freedom.
These were a group of people who were being told how they could and could not worship God and what they should and should not think about Him. They were being persecuted for doing right. Instead of bowing to the oppressors and whining about how rotten they were, they did what they had to do and left.
In the name of God and freedom some pilgrims came to America to worship God as they saw fit and be free from oppression and tyranny. The first year was horribly hard. People died, morale was I am sure quite low, but they endured. They had two choices - live or die trying. By God's grace some lived and more people came over and things were hard, but they relied on God and did what they had to do and in the end thrived.
Now let us fast forward to present day. What state are we in? Every day the world tries telling us what we must think about sin, Creation, and God. Every day the rights and privileges the Pilgrims risked their lives for and our Founding Fathers guaranteed to us are being stripped away. We are being terrorized by our own government. Good men are imprisoned while murderers roam free. We forfeit our freedom for safety and in the end receive neither.
The Pilgrims fled tyranny and oppression so they and all who came after them could be free. They lived and died, abandoned their lives for the cause of Christ and freedom, and here we are giving up every last stitch of our personal freedoms and dignity and integrity for something less substantial than a security blanket. At least you can hold a security blanket. Our Founding Fathers gave up everything and staked their lives for our freedom, and we hand over our freedom over a possible threat of discomfort or danger. Someone whispers a buzz word and our mouths fall silent lest God's truth, once proclaimed proudly from the street corners mind you, offends and we "get in trouble."
The whole of human history has been obsessed with the word "freedom", and we as Christian Americans are the only ones in possession of true freedom. Yet, we give it up at every turn. We yield to the tyranny of sin at the slightest temptation, we silence ourselves for fear of "political correctness", we hand over our constitutional rights in the name of safety. Have we forgotten that this is a fallen world and it is appointed unto a man once to die? Have we forgotten that God does not allow anything outside of His will? Have we forgotten that He moves men and holds the hearts of kings? How then, as the doubly blessed, twice free peoples we are stand idly by and let a tyrannical government take these things away from us? Where is our voice? Where are our prayers? Why are we cow-towing to sinners and slaves of Satan when we are the Children of God?
