The name Martin Rinkart is probably not a familiar one to most of you. He was born in 1586 in the Saxony region of Germany. At an early age he displayed a remarkable gift for music, and for a time, sang at the famous St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where J. S. Bach would later become choir director. However, Rinkart’s love for the church eventually moved him to consider ministry, and at the age of thirty-one he accepted the call to become pastor of the Lutheran congregation in his hometown of Eilenberg.

He arrived just as the Thirty Years War was beginning. Because Eilenberg was a walled city, it attracted countless refugees from the surrounding countryside, and the overcrowded conditions soon brought waves of pestilence and famine. Rinkart responded by allowing his house to serve as a hospice for the afflicted, even though he often had difficulty providing food and clothing for his own family.

The plague of 1637 was particularly severe. At its height, Rinkart was the only remaining minister in Eilenberg—often conducting as many as fifty funerals a day! Yet, amazingly enough, it was during this very time that Martin Rinkart sat down to write a hymn that Christian congregations sing each and every Thanksgiving:

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, in whom this world rejoices;
Who, from our mothers’ arms, hath 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 blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in God’s grace, and guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills in this world and the next.

The fact that he could write a hymn of praise in a time of such pain is a testimony to Rinkart’s unshakable faith. But it also lifts up the idea that gratitude is more than simply counting our blessings when we are surrounded by them. Gratitude is recognizing that every gift we ever receive is just that—a gift! The food and fellowship that we will all share this Thanksgiving are not rights that should be taken for granted; rather, they are signs of God’s continued grace and constant mercy. That’s worth remembering—not only this week, but throughout our lives.