Harvest

September 30, 2019

Below and behind our garage the lawn is slowly being carpeted with the leaves floating down from the ash, maples, and oaks. The goldenrod is in full bloom, a flowery goldmine of nectar and pollen for the bees, while the squash and pumpkin vines are withering, their golden bounty lying like mini orbs across the fields. The apples are yielding their fodder for my cider press, and a neighbor commented the other day about the marshmallows springing up across her meadow. She was of course, referring to the huge round hay bales wrapped in white plastic as they await collection.

It strikes me as odd that the harvest matures with the dying of the vines and the days, just before winter. Fecundity and death walk side by side in this life and in a way, in the life to come. Jesus said that the seed cannot bear fruit unless it dies in the ground, and that we cannot bear fruit in life apart from our readiness to die to self. It’s my observation that there is more truth in that statement than we are usually ready to hear. Anything worth accomplishing requires us to die to a million other choices we could make. The musician, the athlete, the businessman, farmer, teacher...those who excel do so by sacrificing the “other” life they could have. Death is prerequisite to life. 

This season of the year reminds me too, of the harvest God promises at the end of the age. According to Matthew 13, he allows the wheat and weeds to grow together until the harvest when he will send his angels to reap. Then, the end comes. The bounty I see all around me blesses us with sustenance for this life, but along with the dying leaves and vines, I am directed to the harvest of souls that will come just before the end of time and the ushering in of the eternal Kingdom of God.