Sermon: Harvest and Firstfruits Sunday 2nd. October,
2005
Harvest………
There is an old photo of the hay being made at
harvest time, on the
The field is small, surrounded by stone walls,
and lies sheltered in the rocky landscape. It is a
hot day, for in bright sunshine the harvesters,
men and women from the townships round about have
paused for the photograph, a perfect day for the harvest.
Looking at the photo, you can’t help thinking
about that way of life – everyone there knowing each other, helping each
other,
life looks so simple, on that warm summer’s
afternoon – for at the end of the day, the work will be finished,
the hay brought in………
but of course, that was long ago, and when you
think about it,
for the folks in that old photo, life wasn’t so
easy –
but hard work,
sometimes the sun didn’t shine on an afternoon,
instead driving rain could ruin crops,
harvest wasn’t so simple………..
While we have gathered here for harvest
thanksgiving,
harvest isn’t so simple for us either………
we are a long way from the harvest……….
I remember once, I went to a harvest meal, a
harvest home, as
they called it, in a small village in
the church hall was packed with families, and
decorated with wheat sheaves from fields nearby, there were potatoes and
vegetables
on the tables
from the farms round about.
But we are a long way from the harvest………
it’s not so simple for us……… our green beans come
from
melons from
When we read the book of Exodus, we read there
of life
where harvest was near to everyone, where, as the
harvest began
the people gathered,
and the priest would take
the first ears of corn produced from the land
and offer them to God
and give thanks...............
for the harvest had begun
those few ears of corn were
the first of many to come,
the first promise, the
first signs of the huge harvest to come
valley after valley, field
after field,
those first ears of corn
a marvellous sign, of the abundant life so near at hand, the abundant harvest
life that would sweep over the land.
But you know, maybe in some ways, the harvest
these days is far from us,
but the New Testament speaks of other harvests,
which are not far from us,
which are, instead, part of our lives……….
There are two: first the harvest that our loving Father is now gathering to Himself through
Jesus,
the harvest of men
and women, of lives changed and life made abundant through Jesus Christ.
and second
the harvest of the life to come
First: the harvest that our loving Father is now
gathering to Himself
John’s gospel, chapter 4, tells us of how Jesus
and His disciples came near a nondescript town in
when the disciples went on to look for food, Jesus sat and talked to a woman at a well
just outside the town………
after a few minutes of speaking with Jesus, the
woman went and called her friends and family from
the town just to hear the Lord speak, to listen to
Him.
He whose words were as living waters, life
giving, cleansing, clear, living waters……….
she brought her family and friends…….. Jesus said
to the disciples
as the folks came
across the pasture land towards the well,
35 Do you not say, `Four months more and then the
harvest'? I
tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!
They are ripe for harvest.
The Father in heaven,
drawing these men and women to His Son, Jesus……….
Reading further, we are told,
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town
believed in him
they begged
him to
stay with
them, and he stayed two days.
41 And because of his words many more
became believers.
42 They said to the woman, says the
gospel of John, "We no longer believe just
because of
what you said; now we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that
this man really is the Saviour of the
world
……………it is this same harvest that our
loving Father is now gathering to Himself
let us begin to pray, to continue praying, to never give up praying to our
Father in heaven, for that harvest here,
for men and women around us here, looking for life
to find the living Jesus Christ.
Second: the harvest of the life to come
Now, in the New Testament,
Paul uses a picture of the harvest, to explain
something of the life to come,
Paul declares in many places, the fact that
Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead
but in 1 Corinthians,
he speaks of Jesus as the firstfruits
of a harvest
In Paul's mind, is a picture, a memory perhaps,
of
the harvest
thanksgiving in
where those ears of corn
were lifted up in thanks to God,
Now, Paul declares, the risen Jesus Christ is just this -
the first fruit,
His risen life is the first, the promise, of great harvest to
come...............
Christ, as the letter to the Colossians says, as
1 Corinthians says,
- is the beginning and the firstfruits, for he
is the first to be raised from the dead
and there is a harvest
to come of all those who will be raised like Him.
When we look at the resurrection of Jesus,
we also see the future
for ourselves, our own future
For in raising Jesus from the dead, God has put
a marker down,
in that resurrection,
there is a clue, a pointer, to our own future..............
the fact that Jesus has
risen, is God's declaration that we will too,
that we too will share
His risen life,
and as Paul says, we shall be like Him.
You and I will be raised to life
to live again, raised
to life through Jesus Christ to everlasting life in God's presence.
This means that the new world to come, already
has a foothold in this
world,
because Jesus of Nazareth,
our Lord Jesus, has been raised from the dead, by God's power, Jesus is the
firstfruits
of the great harvest
to come………..
let us pray, this for
ourselves this, that we might live in the joy, and the hope, of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord,
that we might live in
the light of the life, the harvest which
is to come.
AMEN