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Faith and Thanksgiving

How God’s Hand Guided the First Pilgrims

By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent

CBN.com – PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts - We all know that the Pilgrims had something to do with Thanksgiving and Plymouth Rock and big tall hats.

But what is often lost is just what a miracle their arrival, and survival, in America truly was.

Sailing on a ship like the one that now sits near Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims lost several of their members to death before they even reached America. Everything from disease to hurricane-force winds buffeted and tested them.

After a harrowing voyage of many weeks, the Pilgrims landed right on these shores, and started a new -- some would say miraculous -- chapter in world history.

By all rights they should not have survived their first winter. They had no room aboard the Mayflower to bring plows or farm animals to work the stony soil.

But they had a stubborn, all-consuming faith.

The Reverend Paul Jehle gives historic talks about the Pilgrims. "They looked at everything as a gift from God,” Jehle said, “even the sorrowful things they saw, as God allowing that to perfect their character. So they were amazing Christians and great examples for us today."

Jehle met us at the foot of a grand statue in Plymouth that commemorates these founding fathers. He says they definitely needed that faith of theirs, for the tribulation they faced was harsh.

"Half of them died the first winter -- 51 out 102," Jehle stated.

But what they did not realize right away was that in being blown off course to Plymouth, they had come exactly to the one place -- in thousands of miles of coastland -- where an Indian tribe had cleared the ground, planted corn crops, and then been wiped out by a horrible disease.

Still, the Pilgrims did not know what to do with this unknown crop.

Then here came another miracle: nearby, staying with Chief Massasoit -- whose statue now overlooks Plymouth Rock -- was the only survivor of his tribe – Squanto. Squanto had been captured by slavers, and had been off learning English and the Christian faith in Europe while his people perished.

Now, returning to his tribal grounds, Squanto found the desperate Pilgrims.

Peter Marshall, one of the foremost Christian authorities on American history, tells of the Pilgrims' miraculous survival and how Squanto played such a key role, in a new DVD series, "Pilgrims, Puritans and Patriots”: "They've lost half their number that first winter. They don't know how to exist in this howling New England wilderness."

Marshall continued, "Here comes this American Indian suddenly, who speaks perfect English, who offers them his services. So they plant all this corn under his tutelage. In October, the corn is ripe finally, and they want to have a celebration, a Thanksgiving celebration. So they invite Chief Massasoit, who had taken Squanto in when he had no family, no relatives. So Massasoit and 90 braves show up for this celebration festival, and they had a three-day celebration of feasting, bow-and-arrow shooting contests, foot races and relay races and games: white people and Indians together, the first time here in Massachusetts – three full days. Thanksgiving for us is afternoon at Grandma's...that kind of thing. Not back then."

But while surviving was a great accomplishment, it is not even close to what these hardy souls and their Puritan brothers went on to contribute to America, and to the world.

Marshall says it is the first time since the Israelites in the Sinai that God's children had the opportunity to create a society based on His Word.

"They literally planted the Gospel in the rocky soil of New England, and literally created the basis for American society as we know it today," Marshall explained.

Jehle said, "The Pilgrims never amounted to great numbers. They never brought fame to themselves. They kind of absorbed into the colony. But their ideas were so potent."

Even before landing, the covenant they drew up together was a huge leap forward for man's freedom. "Certainly the Mayflower Compact was a central cornerstone to self-government," Jehle stated.

Marshall points out that the key concepts for our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were all rooted in the Pilgrims' and the Puritans' first documents.

And those who downplay that America is a Christian nation forget how central their faith was to the Pilgrims.

"They came as families and they came as a church from Leyden Holland,” Jehle recounted, “so to have a church actually be the foundation of America, in concert with the first legislative assembly in Virginia -- you have a great combination there, because you have both of them dedicating this nation to God, both of them looking at this from the context of a Christian commonwealth. So certainly it's significant that both parent colonies in Plymouth and Virginia began with Christian purposes."

But as America wandered from its Christian roots, New England led the way. It became infamous for its aloofness to the Gospel. Still, Marshall says that he and many other believers see that the pot is beginning to bubble, and a real boiling revival may be coming soon.

Marshall said, "If God is going to bring America back to Himself in explosive nationwide revival, which we so desperately need...if He's going to do that, it's been my deep conviction for years that the leadership...the beginning of it...is going to come out of New England."

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