Give Thanks To Him

Open Psalm 100 and you will usually see a short line printed above verse one, before the poem proper begins. In the traditional Hebrew it reads, roughly, “A psalm of thanksgiving,” or “for the thank offering.” Scholars debate how much weight to put on these old headings, but this one is striking: of all the psalms, only this one carries that particular label. The song announces its own purpose before it says a word.

I find that steadying. We do not know the exact day it was first sung, and I am not going to invent one for you. What we can say is that psalms like this belonged to Israel’s gathered worship, the sort of thing sung as people came up to the temple. So the gates and courts in verse four are not poetic scenery. They were stone and timber, and the worshippers really did walk through them with something to give. This is a song for people on their feet, on their way in, gratitude already in hand.

Look at how the line is built. “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.” Gates first, then courts. The gate is the outer threshold, the way in. The courts are the open ground inside, where the worshipper actually stands. The psalmist walks us inward in two steps and gives each step its own word: thanksgiving at the gate, praise in the courts.

The Hebrew behind “thanksgiving” here is todah, and it is worth knowing. Todah carries the sense of thanks offered, an acknowledgement made out loud, often with a gift in hand. It is gratitude that does something, not gratitude that merely feels warm. Thanks given, declared, brought.

What I tend to skim past is the closing phrase, “bless his name.” Blessing God sounds back to front, since we usually think of him blessing us. But here it simply means to speak well of him, to honour who he is. We arrive thankful, and we leave having said something true about him out loud.

That word todah ties this psalm to something solid in Israel’s worship. There was a particular sacrifice, the thank offering, a way of saying with an actual gift that God had been good. Gratitude made costly and visible. The psalm and the offering belong to the same world.

This is where the line runs forward to Christ for me. The whole sacrificial system was always pointing past itself. Hebrews tells us those repeated offerings could never finally deal with sin, and that Jesus offered himself once for all. So the thanksgiving this verse calls for finds its deepest reason at the cross. We give thanks now not only for harvest and mercy and daily bread, but because the gate has been thrown open by someone else’s costly gift.

The short reflection on this page already notes that Jesus called himself the gate. I would add one layer to that: he is also the offering through whom our thanks is carried. Paul tells the Colossians to do everything in his name with thanksgiving (Colossians 3:17), which is this verse grown up and given a face.

Here is my honest struggle with this verse. It tells me to come thankful, and some mornings I am plainly not. The kettle is on, the news is grim, someone I love is unwell, and “enter with thanksgiving” feels like being told to smile for a photograph I never wanted taken.

What helps me is seeing that the psalm commands thanksgiving rather than waiting for it to turn up. Todah is an act, something done, not a weather system you sit and hope will shift. Paul says much the same to the Thessalonians: give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Not for everything, but in it.

So I have been trying to make thanks a reflex rather than a feeling I wait on. I say one true thing back to God before I bring him my list. Of the ten lepers Jesus healed, only one came back to thank him (Luke 17:15-16), and I would rather not join the nine who took the gift and forgot the giver. Naming the mercy does not mend the morning. Done often enough, it quietly turns me round to face the right way.

• What is one true thing I could say back to God before I bring him anything I want today?
• Where has complaint quietly set the tone of my week, and what would coming through the gate thankful actually change?
• Am I waiting for gratitude to arrive as a feeling, or am I willing to practise it when the day is heavy?
• Of the ten who were healed, am I living more like the nine who walked on, or the one who turned back?

If you want company on the days thanks comes hard, you might sit with more from the book of Psalms or browse verses gathered by how you feel.