Kenny Chesney wrote a popular song about the rites of Autumn in small-town America called the “Boys of Fall.”
“When I feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass
I’m back in my helmet, cleats, and shoulder pads
Standing in the huddle listening to the call
Fans going crazy for the boys of fall”
“In little towns like mine that’s all they got
Newspaper clippings fill the coffee shops
The old men will always think they know it all
Young girls will dream about the boys of fall”
There is something about the Fall of the year from the perspective of someone who grew up in a small town in America that stirs the heart. The rites of Fall begin with a game played by young men for the glory of their communities and personal honor, which we call football. And they end with a Feast …a celebration of God’s faithfulness through His provision from the land. A communal Feast that we simply call “Thanksgiving”. In my opinion, Thanksgiving in a rural community is somehow more vivid. It’s more real …when you can look out your window and see the fields that produced the provision which is on the table, and around the same table, the people you love the most.
Sort of a reminder that no matter how technologically advanced our society gets; it’s the land of rural America that is keeping us alive. And it’s the spirit in the hearts of the “Boys of Fall” that most reflects the courage and the grit of the pioneers that settled the land and made it so productive. A sort of fearlessness that borders on reckless stupidity. Was it psychosis or just a deficiency of common sense that caused them to settle in a land of unmitigated wildness and savage brutality. I submit that it was neither. In my opinion their tenacious attitude was sustained by a vision. A vision imparted by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (each a pioneer in their own right). A mental picture of the potential and of the promise of the land.
The Feast of Thanksgiving makes a little more sense when we go back to its beginning. A group of 102 Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower in 1620 to build a country “whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:10). Only 52 of them survived the first winter. And by a series of strange miracles, the survivors were not killed by the native Indians, but were, in fact, aided by them and taught how to raise food from this new land. In retrospect, all these events were absolutely miraculous. Similar to the way God took care of the Israelites in the wilderness crossing through hostile lands and difficult times in the Book of Exodus. A fact that was not lost on the Pilgrims when they elected to have the first Feast of Thanksgiving to celebrate their own survival.
They patterned the Feast of Thanksgiving after the biblical Feast of Tabernacles in Leviticus 23. A Feast that the Lord had ordained to celebrate His provision in the wilderness Crossing. To celebrate the miracles that He provided to ensure the success of Moses’ mission to bring God’s people into their inheritance in a land that God had set aside for them. The parallels are striking and they explain why they patterned the first Feast of Thanksgiving after the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles. A celebration of God’s faithfulness in the dangers of the Wilderness Crossing. It was the Pilgrim’s way of telling the World …America is our promised land. And we can prove it by the fact that we have survived by His hand. And for that we are indeed thankful.
The Hebrew word for “Tabernacles” is “Sukkot”, and it refers to the small huts that the Israelites built to camp in on the wilderness crossing. The Israelites considered the provision to be super-natural (it seems building materials are scarce in the desert), just as the Pilgrims considered their survival to be supernatural.
So, I pray that when we:
“feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass
(and remember when we were) back in our helmets, cleats, and shoulder pads
Standing in the huddle listening to the call
Fans going crazy for the boys of fall”
That we remember those who came before us into a wild and crazy land. Who faced unforgiving elements and unknown giants, but who persevered and built a country “whose maker and builder was God.” And that we are thankful for their legacy of perseverance and love of God that we inherited from them. And that we continue to see the Biblical evidence in our history that declares that we are indeed now and always have been, “one nation under God” , filled with a Spirit of hope and enthusiasm …just like “the boys of fall.”
Pastor G.W.