Harvest
time! Doesn’t that phrase call up wonderful images, especially for those of us
who live here in the Midwest? At harvest time, everywhere you look, you can see
fields of tall corn or wheat waving gently in the wind. “Amber waves of grain” is
the way that the way the song “America the Beautiful” describes it. And in
those fields are huge combines harvesting all the mature crops that were only
seeds so many months before! The grain pours like a waterfall from the combine
into a waiting truck, ready to be safely stored until it is needed. When I see
those huge trucks that are full of grain that was recently harvested from the
fields, I am happy that it’s harvest time in Ohio once again!
In ancient Israel,
of course, there weren’t any combines. The image that would have made an
ancient Israelite happy were sheaves of wheat standing in the fields like so
many soldiers standing at attention. And if the Bible is to be believed, the
people looked forward to that harvest all year! Psalm 126 is an example of that
anticipation. Even if life is hard now, the psalm says, when the harvest comes,
everything will be just fine! The festival at a good harvest sounds like it was
quite a celebration: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Super Bowl
Sunday all rolled into one. After all, if the harvest was poor, the whole country
faced starvation. But a good harvest meant that the country’s food supply was
secure for one more year; and everyone celebrated, from the smallest child
toddling next to his mother to the oldest person in the community who had to be
helped when he walked. No wonder that the people looked forward to the harvest
all year!
These days,
we don’t look forward to the harvest the way that the ancient Israelites did.
In fact, the only people who really anticipate the harvest are the farmers who
look forward to having some rest after the hard work of the growing season! Of
course, we celebrate Thanksgiving every year at harvest time; but most of us
don’t really connect it with that year’s harvest. We can go to Kroger any old
time and pick up a turkey from the meat counter, some cranberry relish from the
deli, a pumpkin pie from the bakery, and a bag of mixed vegetables from the
freezer. Even those of us who do our own cooking don’t raise the turkey, pick
the cranberries, or grow the vegetables in our own garden! Why would we look
forward to the harvest? It’s just another season as far as most of us are
concerned! That’s just a fact of modern life.
But we
Christians have another harvest that we can anticipate – and anticipate with
great joy! That’s the great harvest that God will bring in at the end of time.
Mark talks about it in his gospel in a little parable that is frequently
overlooked (4:26-29). The kingdom of God, Mark tells us, is like a field that
yields good crops. The farmer scatters the seed, and then the crops grow
miraculously: the seeds sprout, the stalk grows, and then the wheat head
appears and matures. When everything is ready, that farmer harvests the grain. It’s
a short, simple parable, but it would have called up lots of images in the
minds of the listeners. They would have recalled how uncertain life is at the beginning
of the growing season. All kinds of things are uncertain as they get ready to
sow their seeds. Would those seeds fall on good soil? Would they germinate and
grow into sturdy crops? Would those crops withstand the growing season, or
would insects, weeds, or weather cause them to wither and die? Maybe they would
even remember how, on some years, they wept with hope as they sowed those
seeds, because the previous year’s harvest had been poor, and they were nearly
out of food! You can almost hear them singing Stephen Foster’s poignant song,
“Hard Times, Come Again No More.”
Let us pause in life's pleasures, and count
its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in
our ears:
“Oh! Hard times come again no more.”
Tis the song, the sigh of the weary:
“Hard times, hard times, come again no more!”
Many days you have lingered around my cabin
door
“Oh! Hard times come again no more!”
But in
Mark’s parable, that song is silent. In Mark’s parable, the harvest is sure!
They can count on lots of ripe, healthy grain that will be harvested and stored
away safely and securely. After this harvest, there will be no more hard times,
no more laments, no more weeping with despair. That’s because Mark isn’t
talking about an earthly harvest; he’s talking about the harvest at the end of
time. And we know what will happen then: Christ will gather his people together
like sheaves of wheat, and we will be safely and securely kept in his kingdom;
not just for a season, but for eternity!
It’s a good
comparison, isn’t it, comparing the uncertainty of our earthly lives with the
uncertainty of a field of growing crops. Sometimes the weather cooperates and
we are joyful in the knowledge that the harvest will be a good one. Other
years, there is too much rain (or too little); a resistant strain of weed
threatens to crowd out the good crops; or a sneaky little insect infiltrates
the crops and makes a meal of them. Our lives are just like that: sometimes,
things go well, and – as the psalmist describes it – “our mouths are filled
with laughter” (Psalm 126:2). Other times, our lives are difficult, and we “go
out weeping” (Psalm 126:6), wondering if we will make it through another day.
But we can all look forward to the harvest when Christ will take us home to a
place where there is no more weeping, no more pain, no more uncertainty, no
more insecurity, secure forevermore. “The one who goes out weeping… will return
with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:6) How do we know? We
know because Christ Jesus is our king! And Christ is not a monarch who is a
slave to his whims, his prejudices, or his greed! Christ rules God’s kingdom
with love, with mercy, and with compassion. Christ Jesus is the same yesterday,
today, and tomorrow; and he has promised us that he will care for us eternally.
That promise is something that we can trust!
So, this
Thanksgiving, as we sit down to a huge dinner table groaning with food – or to
a smaller table with just a few family or friends – or to a cozy table set just
for one or two – we can be thankful not only for the food, for our friends, and
for our families, but also for Jesus Christ and his love for us. And we can
anticipate the time to come when he will come to take his harvest home: eternally
secure, eternally safe, and eternally joyful. Thanks be to God!
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