All Scriptures quoted are from The New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise quoted.

At the end of last week’s worship service something very serendipitous and beautiful happened. People were asked to stand wherever they were and, as an act of thanksgiving, simply call out the name of a person who had at one time been a part of this church family and had participated in passing faith in Christ along to them. At first, I wondered if I would be left to stand here alone in a silent room, embarrassed that the plan didn’t work. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Within just a few seconds, people started popping up all over this place, like Orville Redenbacher popcorn, eager to be the first to say another name. There were tears in people’s eyes as the names of old saints that made our worship and service in place possible were called out. People who had given to us of the blessings they had received so that we, in turn, could give of the blessings we had received to those generations coming behind us.

We could do it again this morning. We could stand and give witness to the people who personally taught us the meaning of gratitude. We could stand and give witness to the most meaningful Thanksgiving celebration we ever experienced. It would all be beautiful and, in its own way, a true act of worship.

Like the original pilgrims who started this American tradition centuries ago, we could thank God for bringing us this far. But, what about the gratitude God is due for his commitment to take us from where stand now to the next place? Have you ever thought of the future that is yours in Christ as a reason for Thanksgiving?

In order to go forward to these blessings, we must first go back, to somewhere around the 8th century B.C., or almost eight-hundred years before the time of Christ, to the time of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah is making the case that the past is holy prologue. As God’s spokesperson in the moment, he simply says, "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, they shall not bear children for calamity. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together . . . says the Lord.”

When we ask for family or friends sitting at the Thanksgiving table to share the blessings for which they want to thank God, isn’t it true that most of those tend to be in the past tense? Indeed, we should thank God that he has given us capacity to look back and, from this vantage point, even find good in what at the time seemed only evil? Yet, Isaiah is calling us to do more. Having stopped to be grateful for what has been, should we not stop now and give thanks, according to Isaiah’s prophecy, for what will yet be? What if Isaiah is saying that the God who did create is still creating? What if the heavens and earth we now see before us are destined not for destruction but for a major overhaul of re-creation? When we talk of God redeeming his creation, do we not mean more than that God will forgive our past? Will he not also recreate what sin has destroyed? Will we trust him for future blessings?

Next week, we have relatives coming to stay in our home for the holiday. Nancy has already warned me of one of her sisters and brothers-in-law. It seems that they have made something of a hobby of attending conferences on creation where they find reinforcement for their belief that the whole world God created is only 5,000 years old. Nancy warned me gently that this is not a time for theological arm-wrestling. It so happens that I believe creation must have taken billions of years and involved some kind of evolutionary process. I also believe that all of it was of God’s doing, from beginning until future-end. You see, I not only believe God did create all that is, I believe that God is still creating. He is not done yet, especially with you and me.

A Christian from another century liked to ponder: “‘It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon . . .? It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them’” (Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, Doubleday, 2001, p. 51).

When the pastoral duties of her large, urban congregation began to drain more from her than God seemed willing to replace, Barbara Brown Taylor decided to stop and smell the roses, or the magnolias and honeysuckle as it turns out to be, in her native Georgia. She reports of her experience that “the effect was immediate, like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. All these earthly goods were medicine for what ailed me, evidence that the same God who had breathed the world into being was still breathing” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church, Harper, 2006, pp. 4-5).

When we say the word “creation,” our minds rush back to the seven days mentioned in Genesis. Should they not also grab hold of those days, like a tie-to pole and swing us back around to the end of God’s good book where what Isaiah said is reinforced? “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new,’” (Revelation 21:1-5a).

God created this world, however he chose to do it. God is recreating this world and, though we missed the initial creation, we are right in the middle of God’s continuing creation, even as it is taking place all around us.

We held Bill Pettijohn’s memorial service yesterday in Bassett chapel. Though there is sadness in the family and in this church family that Bill is gone, there is also peace. Anyone who knew Bill knows that he sang of a God who did create and who is still creating. Of a God who promised that if any man is in Christ, behold, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Bill could sing that song because it was in his heart, not just his head. Indeed, it was the song of his heart. The song of thanksgiving for what God is creating!

Is it your song?