Now Thank We All Our God!

Here in the US, our Thanksgiving still carries images of a harvest festival, regardless of how many generations removed we are from the farm and the growing cycle. So when we hear traditional Thanksgiving songs, images of a bountiful harvest and meal and of the Plymouth colonists gathering with the Wampanoag to mark the successful establishment of a colony and peaceful coexistence with the indigenous people are the images that prevail in our imaginations. 


But there are many reasons to give thanks, and thanks must still be given even during hardship. Some of our oldest thanksgiving songs have more to do with hostilities and hardships than with harvest.  One example is "Now Thank We All Our God", by 17th century Dutch Lutheran minister Martin Rinkart.


According to Cyberhymnal, Mr. Rinkart and his parishioners experienced dark, desolate days of siege and plague and defeat. He ministered to parishioners faithfully through a horrific time, and when at last they were relieved from the dire situation, he wrote this hymn in celebration:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.