As we have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving and we enter into this joyous season of Advent, have you ever really looked into the history of Thanksgiving? Outside of what you grew up learning about in school? As I have really begun to look into the true history it is exciting to see the incredible example of perseverance that the pilgrims exhibited centuries ago. It inspires me in my walk with Christ today. (Disclaimer: I admit I still have a lot to learn about this history outside of what I learned in school and ask that you bear with me as I share a little about what I have been learning and how it speaks to me.)
In listening to a podcast by FamilyLife today called “Remembering the Pilgrims” I was brought to tears by the historian’s words in relation to us today. He said, “American Christians today, largely, are stranded in the present. We really don’t think of ourselves as being part of a church that not only transcends cultures, tribes, and nations, but transcends generations and ages. When we gather around the throne, at future time, we’ll be seeing a church that spans centuries as well as cultures.”
The pilgrims should be counted among our great cloud of witnesses that go before us in the faith; in our greater body of Christ.
As I learn more about the pilgrims, I realize they were very much like me and you. Ordinary people who served an extraordinary God. I am not seeking to put them up on a pedestal or even to say that everything they did was right. (In actuality, it was never just believers who came as pilgrims-you also had a lot of unbelievers-coming to the colonies for reasons as varied as adventure seekers to escaping their criminal past across the ocean.) The pilgrims who were believers had many great flaws and sins (as we all do) and yet possessed a love for God that compelled them to look at every aspect of their lives in light of their walk with Christ. Yet during a very turbulent time of church history, we see the pilgrims being courageous in standing up with conviction against what they believe is not of God. This action could ultimately lead to persecution-at the very least fines, prison, or their very lives.
And I am not only talking about persecution from within the church but also the cost many of them paid in the colonies-during the journey in tight quarters within the ship, and then the hardships that came as they arrived in a new land-the cold winter, very difficult country than what they expected, struggling to adapt and make shelter and find food in the midst of sicknesses and diseases. The statistics say a lot about this-of the 102 passengers who arrived on the Mayflower in the fall, only 50 were still living by the following spring. Of the 18 married couples on the ship 1 or both members had died in 15 of the 18 families. Yet they still stopped and gave thanks. What can we learn from their example centuries ago? Resilience and steadfastness.
William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth, wrote in his letters that this church body had made a covenant with one another. “They would walk together in all God’s ways made known, or to be made known to them, according to their best endeavors, whatever it should cost them.”
That last part really resonates with me, “whatever it should cost them”. It stirs my heart with many questions as I look now at some of the history that is known about the pilgrims. Could they have really know what that meant? If they had, would they have gone? I think about my own life. Your life. When we step forward in obedience-when we say “yes” to God in one area, do we ever really understand what it will ultimately cost us?
I think not. So why do we continue to step forward in faith. Or do we? How many times have I been scared of the unknown and tried to understand all parts of my coming story-to weigh the good and the bad and the possible what ifs? And in doing so in my own limited human mind, I have greatly missed out on the incredible power of our Almighty God in whom ALL things are POSSIBLE? The same God of the believers in Hebrews 11, these great members of the hall of faith “who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength after being weak, and put armies to flight….some were tortured, not accepting release, others mocked and scourged, put in bonds, imprisoned, stones, sawed in two, died by the sword, others wandered about in sheep and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.”
These great heroes of the faith are a part of THE church of our Savior that transcends the ages! They are a part of MY church. YOUR church. OUR church. Will you allow their walks of faith to speak to your current life? To help you transcend this current time and place and the every day things that make up your life. To help you gain a kingdom, eternal perspective. Every day people like you and me-like my beautiful Karamajong friends here striving to follow Christ in an animistic culture, like the sweet, old man who is the door greeter at your church, the single woman with 5 kids who goes to your kid’s school, the African believer striving to plant churches in the largest refugee camp in the world here in Uganda…..WE are the church now and let us encourage one another. Let us not forget those who went before us and fought the good fight of faith-made up of every tribe and nation and tongue…..let us endeavor to make a covenant with one another, as the pilgrims did, to WALK TOGETHER in ALL God’s ways, WHATEVER IT SHOULD COST US….until we STAND TOGETHER before the throne of God. Let us truly walk together as THE Church.
