Embracing Turkey Day

Image by PublicDomainImages from Pixabay

The grocery store was a zoo Monday evening. With snow coming everyone needed their Thanksgiving shopping done immediately. What would Turkey Day be without a turkey?

Our national day of thanksgiving has turned into a day of food and football, but I'm not fighting it this year. I'm embracing it, the food part at least.

Worship in the Old Testament seldom happened without food. The Israelites took their sacrifices to the temple, offered them to God, and then ate of the sacrifices. If the offering was particularly holy, only the priests could eat. The food was sacred.

Jesus's death on the cross has ended the Old Testament sacrifices, but God invites us to celebrate every meal as a holy offering to Him. In 1 Timothy 4:3-5 God tells us we may eat anything we want. There are no longer forbidden foods "for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer" (ESV).

I always read these verses as permission to eat bacon, one of the forbidden foods in the Old Testament. I missed the significance of the words made holy. This is the same term used in the Old Testament to describe the grain and sin offerings--they were so holy that anything which touched them would be made holy (Leviticus 6:18, 27).

We find the word again in the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." Our food can be holy like the name of God. This changes the way I think about turkey.

There is no dividing line between Thanksgiving and Turkey Day. When I receive my food as a gift from my holy Father, eating it is a sacred act, just as sacred as eating food from the altar.

So enjoy the feast, add bacon if you want, but do it all as an act of worship to the God who daily showers us with blessings. And may you have a very happy Turkey Day.

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV