Giving Thanks
by Stuart Malkin 4 April 2022
I wonder if you have an affinity with anything?
From a boy mine has been with trees. Firstly I went to a professional singing tutor and one of the songs I loved and still do was “ I think that will never see is a poem love as a tree”.
Secondly, at the bottom of my Grandparent’s garden, who I lived with, was an orchard with a stream running through it, great for climbing and falling from but also getting dirty in the muddy conditions below, unfortunately grandma never seemed to understand and a tweak round the ears was a result.
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Bible Reading Luke 19:1-9)
Jesus went on into Jericho and was passing through. There was a chief tax collector named Zacchaeus who was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowd. So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus who was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to that place he looked up and said. ‘Hurry down Zacchaeus because I must stay in your house today.’ Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him with great joy. All the people who saw it started grumbling, this man has gone as a guest to the home of a sinner. Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord ‘Listen sir, I will give half of my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone I will pay back four times as much’
Jesus said to him ‘Salvation has come to this house today ‘. The Son of man came to seek and save the lost.
Yet again another situation where a tree is at the centre. This story was probably remembered for a number of reasons one being a song about Zacchaeus being a little man and the last line to a child not really meaning a great deal but the climbing up a tree for me was reality.
Moving on into my mid teens I heard of a man dying on a tree in a very cruel way for the likes of me, and the last line of the Zacchaeus story became a reality
There are a number of ways we GIVE THANKS.
Around the country there are numerous rainbows giving thanks for the NHS, in the front garden we have a cherry tree and Ann has put the colours of the rainbow in it.
We can give thanks for God’s Power In Creation.
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These are just three verses of seven and the last reads as follows -
Think of a world without any worship,
Think of a God without his only Son,
Think of a cross without a resurrection
Only a grave and not a victory won:
We thank you Lord for showing us our Saviour
We thank you Lord and praise your holy name.
Where does our giving thanks end?