Harvest
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” John 12:24 NIV
Take an afternoon drive in rural America this time of year, and your eyes will take in a hearty crop ripe for the gathering. Seeded and planted some months ago, in view of harvest, a plentiful one, we pray. It’s a pattern the farmer has come to expect year after year after year. But corn and beans aren’t the only seeds we put in the ground in expectation of a harvest to come. There’s another field just on the outskirts of each rural town, where we plant our loved ones and fellow church members in the ground.
Sown with tears, we look forward to a harvest from those plantings too. Even though, every time we gather there, not much seems to change, other than planting one more of us in the ground. But it’s not as if we do so without hope. Not when you consider the way God gives new life to the seeds we bury in the earth. That is, not when you consider planting and harvesting in the light of what Jesus promised and guaranteed by His death and rising from the dead.
The Apostle Paul says, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Cor. 15:20). On account of sin, your coffin is a box to rot in. But on account of the forgiveness of sins, you become a life-bearing seed poked into the soil. Jesus’ resurrection is the pledge, the first-fruits of the greatest crop to come, the resurrection of all His people to glory, wherever you end up planted, in a yield that’s more than worth the wait.
The harvest is truly plenteous, the laborers truly few. Pray for laborers to preach the Word… and don’t fear speaking it yourself!
O Lord, send forth laborers into Your harvest. Amen.