[AI translation] We are gathered for a service of thanksgiving on the last night of this year. What else can we do in the final hours of a fleeting year but fill our souls with thanksgiving to God and pour out to His glory. Giving thanks is not just a matter of folding my hands and giving thanks - it is more than that: it is an attitude, a spiritual warmth that permeates my whole being, a temperature of the heart that, if I then want to express it in the form of thanks, I feel that only a very small fraction of it can fit into the words I speak. It is this sense of true gratitude to God that is expressed in this passage of the prayer that we are reading from Jesus. I would like nothing more than that all of us here tonight, looking back on the year 1968, may be able to say with sincerity, with reconciliation, with a grateful heart, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."What was God's will, what did God want for you and me and all of us in this past year? What he always wants, in short and simply: good! The best! Our good! Whatever is for the good of each of us! God's will is always good for man. I imagine how good it would be to sit here with a piece of paper and a cross and write down and count all the good deeds that the Lord, the loving Father, has done for us in just these last 365 days of our lives! If we really did that here, it would show how little we keep track of God's good deeds, perhaps we don't even remember them exactly - which shows how easily we can get over them! We do not forget the suffering and the sad hours so quickly, we still complain about them years later, and forgetting God's good deeds is ingratitude to the God who gave them. He expects nothing from us for His good deeds but gratitude. He wants us to accept them from His hand, to see His gracious will in them. Nor does He want this for Himself, but for us, for our sake.
His glory will be nothing the poorer for our lack of gratitude, but our joy in His good deeds all the more! And so often we deprive ourselves of this joy! Many people are unable to say with truly joyful thanksgiving, "Thy will be done," precisely because they do not see clearly enough this good deed in God's will. Yes, because this too depends on our being able to see the things and events of our lives through the eyes of faith. Those who do not, may very soon be done with listing the good deeds of God, because then only those outstanding, exceptional, great events are included which have been a joy, a pleasant good feeling, like little oases in the monotony of the desert. Then only the building up of someone for whose healing you prayed, or the fulfillment of some old wish you longed for, or perhaps the unexpected good and beauty of something you felt compensated for many other ugly and bad parts of your life, and so on, count as good events. Indeed, often only what the world generally calls good fortune counts as divine good fortune.
It is easy to say to these things, Lord, Thy will be done, I see and feel what good Thou hast willed for me, Thou hast bestowed, Thou hast blessed me. I accept it with joy and gratitude. But try for once to see even those things which we take so natural and for granted, not so natural and for granted: all at once the good deeds of God multiply before your soul! Because it is not self-evident that you are here in this church and not in a hospital bed or in a coffin! Nor is it self-evident that you can hear the preaching of the Word of God and sing its psalm of thanksgiving, nor is it self-evident that you have a coat to protect your body and shoes on your feet, nor is it self-evident that you had lunch today and did not go hungry, nor is it self-evident that when you turn on the tap, drinkable, refreshing clean water comes out, nor is it self-evident that your child is giggling at you, and so on and so forth. Well, what we take so much for granted in our lives is all a gift, the will of a benevolent Someone. Oh, how much good will God has had for you, you would really notice if He ever took away something you take so much for granted in your life! When you say, "Thy will be done," let there be in it a grateful wonder at how much undeserved good God has blessed you with! If you were to record all this, there would not be enough time left of this year, and if you were to bless the God who gave it all, you would never have time to complain because of all the thanksgiving!
But obviously, the past year has not only been full of such thankful events... What should a man do now who has been enriched by some great disappointment in the old year? How can the soul who has had perhaps the saddest experience of his life this year, the one from whom he has taken his child, or the other half of his life, his partner, be filled with gratitude? Or on whom the Lord has laid a cross that seems unbearable? Oh, how many people come to church this evening with some new cross! Each one knows for himself what is in his bag, what pains, what unfulfilled hopes, what worries for someone, what spiritual blows, wounds, tears, sighs...! Oh, how hard it is sometimes to say, with a grateful heart, "Thy will be done!"
Well, my brothers, let me say very humbly, but very firmly, that God always wills good, even in the many crosses and troubles! "Thy will be done": it is the believer's declaration of trust in the God known as the loving Father, who would rather sacrifice Himself in Jesus, rather die on the cross, than let you or me go to death. "Thy will be done": with this I am asking for the strength to be able to see my destiny, to dare to see it, to see always behind and above it, the guiding power of God, His mighty hand that moves events, His wise and merciful will.
If a believer looks back into the past, he can piece together a piece of God's eternal predestination from the events that have taken place, and he can record with the confident faith that, behold, this is what God wanted, this is what God's will was for me! Even above Satan and his work is somehow the permissive or punitive will of Almighty God! Now, with this request, "Thy will be done", I accept and acknowledge the omnipotent rule of God in my life, that there is not blind will, but a guiding, caring divine will over me, that Someone is leading, guiding, guiding, ruling in every aspect of my life! - We are not vagabonds of life, tossing and turning like a ping-pong ball between two rackets and the table, but wanderers, with a set path, with a God-given goal! So even if a stretch of the road is difficult, keep going, don't be afraid, God means you well! Remember that the One who taught us to pray, "Thy will be done", has put this prayer in our lives! Since Jesus, there in the Garden of Gethsemane, uttered the great declaration, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt" - that is, Thy will be done - and since this will was done, and was done on Calvary, one thing we know with certainty: that the will of God is a saving will, a redeeming will. It is not the will of a tyrant, a cruel potentate, who makes Himself absolutely superior to His creatures, but the will of a loving Father, who makes the greatest sacrifice to seek and keep what is lost to Him. If He wills something, it can only be good, it can only be for our good, even if it may not seem so! Do not say, then, "Thy will be done" as one who is forced to resign himself to the unchangeable, not gnashing his teeth and swallowing tears in helplessness in the face of overwhelming odds, not with resentment or secret rebellion in his heart, but as one who knows himself, his family, the world, in the hands of a wiser, more loving power than himself! Of course you don't understand many times why God wants it this way, but if He wants it this way, it is certainly the right way! It must be so for your good.
It will all come out in the end. And then from there, at the very end of the journey, looking back, the whole journey, everything, even that which may be so painful, scary or dark now, will become clear. So try to see, perceive and appreciate everything that is so difficult, even now, from above, from the end, from the perspective of the certainty of the divine solution. Rousseau once said: the less I understand God, the more I worship Him! And then there is immeasurable consolation, power in these five words, "Thy will be done." So, whatever painful memories you carry with you from the past year, give thanks now with this declaration of trust. Every aching, rebellious heart finds peace in thanksgiving! Try it, and you will see what a happy life a grateful life is! Give thanks for yourself for God's will!
Do you know what is the one thing that could spoil the joyful mood of our Thanksgiving on this last night of the New Year?! It is to think of our sins and failures throughout the year! Oh, how full of them is this past year! But we have done many things wrong, not as we should have done them, but many things we have not done that we should have done! Who can list the words, actions, thoughts, and feelings that have been a complete mockery of this great commandment, "Love God and love your neighbour as yourself"? We have forgotten most of this, but we feel the burden of it, especially on this last night of the New Year, almost involuntarily, because another whole year has passed from our lives: who knows how many steps we have taken towards the moment when we will have to appear before the judgment seat of Christ for the great reckoning! It is in vain to flee into the merry revelry of New Year's Eve: wine and merriment cannot wash away the sins that will one day be called to account as a heavenly debt from us all. But if one is really burdened with this debt, if one really wants to be free of it, let me tell you: there is something that will not only erase all the incriminating data from your memory, but what is more important: from the memory of the Lord! Yes, it simply erases, like when a blackboard is erased with a sponge, so that its place no longer exists. And that something is: the blood of Jesus! It is written, "His blood cleanses us from all sin!" It is for Jesus alone that God can now forgive all your sins. Do you hear? All your sins! Even the things you don't even remember, your whole sinful nature! As if you never had any debts! This is the best, most merciful will of God! Yes: His WILL! For it is written, "Do I desire the death of the wicked, saith the Lord God?" If you can now say to this will of God, with truly sincere gratitude, "Thy will be done", then all the other problems, questions, reasons for the past year will be solved.- Behold, this is how God now offers you His redeeming will, His love, His forgiving grace: accept it, simply accept it, with great, humble gratitude, saying, "Lord, Thy will be done!"
I said at the beginning, I want nothing more tonight than for all of us here to be able to say sincerely, from the heart tonight, "Thy will be done." Now, then, whoever can truly say it now, can close the year 1968 with a thankful heart and a reconciled heart and move on into the new year!
Amen.
Bless Him, for the Lord has done everything so well!
He has borne you on eagle's wings, guided you, protected you in your trouble.
His great mercy
He pours out on you day by day:
You feel his blessing in everything.
(Canto 264, verse 2)
Date: 31 December 1968, New Year's Eve
Lesson
Mt 26,36-46