The Song of the Harvest

I always enjoyed autumn in New England; the crispness of the air and the crunch of the leaves.  But it has long been the theme of the harvest that draws me in.  There is something about a full pumpkin patch or a soon to be harvested corn field that touches something ‘primal’ in my spirit.

One of my favorite 'autumn' hymns is Come, Ye Thankful People Come by Henry Alford. This is such a wonderful Song of the Harvest.  Here is the song, if you are not familiar with it (it is in the Public Domain, so I can post it here)

1) Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin;
God our Maker doth provide For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, Raise the song of harvest home.

2) All the world is God’s own field, Fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown, Unto joy or sorrow grown;
First the blade, and then the ear, Then the full corn shall appear:
Lord of harvest, grant that we Wholesome grain and pure may be.

3) For the Lord our God shall come, And shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day All offenses purge away;
Give His angels charge at last In the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store In His garner evermore.

4) Even so, Lord, quickly come, Bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, Free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, In Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, Raise the glorious harvest home.

Verse 1 celebrates God's material provision for His people.  King David celebrated God’s abundance in Psalm 65 (all references are from the English Standard Version):

9 You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it;  the river of God is full of water;  you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.  10 You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.  11 You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.  12  The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, 13  the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy. (Psalm 65:9-13)

The Lord is a God of abundance and our Thanksgiving holiday has its roots in this understanding of God’s blessing.  But there is a Song of the Harvest that goes beyond pumpkins and apples and roasted turkey.  The hymn reflects the heart-song of the Christian; the longing for the Day when the Lord will come to ‘harvest the Earth’, not of crops, but people.

Consider the second stanza of the hymn.  The Bible speaks often of people and events in farming terms because this was an image most people understood.  Jesus too used farming images to convey His teachings.  

In Matthew 13 Jesus told a parable: 24 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.  26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?'  28 He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'  29 But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.  30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" (Matthew 13:24-30)

The problem at hand is that a farmer, after sowing his crop, discovers his enemy has sown weeds into the field.  The servants wonder if they should uproot the weeds but the farmer is concerned that the grain would be damaged in the process, so he determines to let both grow together until harvest.

Jesus went on to explain the parable: "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. (Matthew 13:37-39)

Jesus tells us clearly that the field is the world.  God created the world through Jesus.  Jesus, the Son of Man, planted Himself in the hearts of His human creation.  He planted His love and His place as Savior.  But we read in Genesis 3 that satan, the enemy, planted the evil seed of sin.  As people spread across the earth, the two seeds spread.  Some—Jesus calls them sons of the kingdom—recognized the seed of God and obeyed Him.  Others—named by Jesus as the sons of the evil one—chose to follow the seed of the enemy. 

The Church exists as good seed, ‘wheat’, in a world filled with weeds.  The removal of the weeds, if done before the wheat is ready, would damage that good grain as well.  So the heavenly Farmer, for the love of the Church and waiting for all wheat to grow, allows both seeds to grow together; and “each…is known by its own fruit.” (Luke 6:44)

Think on the third verse of the hymn.  There is a Day of Harvest on the horizon.  On the Day of God’s choosing, Christ Jesus will send His harvesters to collect the wheat and the weeds.  Both are gathered, but each has a very different ending:

30 ‘…Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn…’ 40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.  41  The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,  42  and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. (Matthew 13:40-43a)

The barn is a metaphor for the coming eternal Kingdom of God.  The ‘wheat’, the Church made pure, will enter into the Kingdom in great joy.  The ‘weeds’, all those who have rejected God’s Word and Way in Jesus, will be cast into a fiery pit which the Bible calls ‘the Lake of Fire’ (Revelation 20:15) where they will be consumed and cease to exist.

Two other passages affirm this event:

John the Baptizer saw the Day of Harvest: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12)

And Jesus spoke of the Harvest again: “26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” (Mark 13:26-27)

Look again at the fourth verse of the hymn.  As believers in Jesus we are the wheat and how we look forward to the day Christ comes to gather us into His Kingdom!  In that place there will be no sadness, no pain, no death.  It will be wonderful beyond words.

But as much as we long for that Day, we cannot forget that there is ‘wheat’ yet to grow; people to whom we are responsible to share the Good News of the Farmer and to aid in their growth.  And it is important to remember that we are not the harvesters; it is not our job to cut down the weeds.  Certainly we must guard against the weeds choking out the wheat, but the Lord is the Farmer.

So then, are you wheat, or a weed?  I’m not sure one can become the other, but I do know that all had better listen well to what Jesus says: “He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:43b)