Harvest Thanksgiving (3rd & 10th February 2019)

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Deuteronomy 26:11
Theme: Rejoice In His Goodness


Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

The godly farmer who prepares the soil, sows the seed, and tends the growing crop hopes for a good harvest believing that God is able to provide it. If that hope is only the prospect of benefitting from the changes and chances of the season than it is nothing more than a worldly wish. The unbelieving farmer farms to take advantage of God’s benevolence and thus elevate himself in the world’s eyes. The godly farmer gratefully receives God’s blessings and uses the benefits to the advantage of his neighbour. Faith, and the motivations it produces are the determining factors as to whether one is seeking to exploit God’s generosity or allocate it. Harvest Thanksgiving can only be meaningful to those who recognize the source. Everyone benefits from God’s generosity. For the believer God’s generosity in this life is a small foretaste of grander blessings to come; for the ungodly it is a small consolation in view of a future destitute of His favour.

The Israelites were instructed to celebrate God’s blessing on their agricultural season during the Feast of Booths1, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival marked the end of the harvest. It lasted a week and was also the conclusion to the half of their liturgical year that began with Passover. The eighth and final day was designated as a high and holy day. One of the unique features of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles is that the Israelites we to set up temporary shelters around the sanctuary to reside in during the week-long feast. These tents, or booths, would provide temporary protection and surely would have reminded the Israelites of their transitory time in the desert. During the Feast of Booths, the Israelites spent the week in temporary dwellings around the sanctuary, but the permanence of God’s presence was what was really being celebrated.

God’s people were commanded to give of their firstfruits to indicate their thankfulness and show their lives were orientated towards Him. But outward actions still meant nothing without the integrity of the heart. Just going through the motions amounts to empty ritual. Nothing has changed today. The hollowness of much of organized Christianity is now echoing all around us. What is the answer, for example, to apathy about the mission of the church? Surely this involves serious soul-searching! If we lack interest in the spiritual welfare of others, either as individuals or as communities of believers, the deeper issue is our own relationship with Christ. It’s a confronting truth.
Why did the crowds come searching for Jesus today? Well, they were part of the 5000 that had had their bellies filled. What a great way to celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving! These people didn’t want to lose touch with the source of their welfare. Jesus immediately addresses their misguided intentions. “I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me, not because you saw the miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”2 They witnessed the miracle, they benefitted from, it but they didn’t make the much more important connection. They filled their stomachs, but their souls were still starving. So, Jesus says to them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”3

You see, the most serious consequence of original sin is unbelief. At every turn we are prone to mistrust or misrepresent God’s promises. The Scriptures call it a curse. It’s the curse of looking inward, the curse of desperately searching for security and meaning in the wrong places. Christ came to lift that curse. After the judgment on man’s wickedness, rendered at the time of Noah’s flood, God made a covenant that previewed the end of the curse. The Bible says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”4 So, God guarantees His providence. His judgment will be restrained.

But how? And why? Just because the flood appeased His wrath? No, there’s more. The fulfillment is summarized in these words, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”5 The curse was broken when Jesus offered His own body as a sacrifice of atonement and rose as the firstborn from the dead. The curse of sin is broken. We are freed from death’s power. We feast on the banquet of the ‘firstfruits’ of Christ’s grace when we dine on His body and blood in the heavenly meal. It is manna from above. Because you are what you eat, we are never the same. The Lord’s Supper is the food of immortality.


The Israelites were instructed to bring the firstfruits of their harvest. The language of firstfruits is retained in the New Testament, as when Paul says, “We have the firstfruits of the Spirit”6. He also says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.”7 God looks at us as if we were each a firstborn son. But not just any firstborn, one that has been redeemed and consecrated to God. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven, the true spiritual manna. He alone gives life to the soul. Yes, we must still toil to grow food from the soil. That was part of the curse on Adam. But no labor is needed to provide for the soul. Jesus is the grain of wheat that fell in the soil and died so that He could bear much fruit8.
Dear friends, some harvests are better than others. Farming is still an occupation of faith, though with food security, insurance and contingencies, probably not as much as it once was. Yet, believers should not obsess about whether the next harvest will be good or not. Just as Christians don’t speculate on whether God will presently relieve them of a certain struggle or grant a fervent wish. We commend these things to God and proceed daily to bear the cross. Each day the Holy Spirit must teach us the meaning of “Your will be done.”9 Then we learn to live in hope.

If the resolution of the matter is within your grasp or if your heart has judged the matter closed, then you are no longer living in hope. Your heart and mind have moved on and your prayers will express only anger, or joy, frustration or gratitude. Hope endures only through faith and all else is darkness and confusion. You may even be preparing yourself that your hopes may be dashed. But where the believer’s hope is pressed to its limits is precisely where Christ intervenes for His saints. He does this no sooner than necessary because we “live by faith, not by sight.”10 Why did Thomas believe: Because Thomas saw the dead Jesus alive, or because Jesus made the dead (spiritually) Thomas live? God blesses us abundantly in our physical and spiritual needs, our vocations and our harvests of grain and those of His kingdom. Today we give thanks. Amen.


+ In nomine Jesu +

Harvest Thanksgiving
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
3 February 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 See Leviticus 23:33-43
2 John 6:26
3 John 6:27
4 Genesis 8:22
5 Galatians 2:13
6 Romans 8:23
7 Romans 12:12
8 John12:24
9 Matthew 6:10
10 2 Corinthians 5:7