“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

He must have been physically exhausted. He had to have been.  Wouldn’t you if this had been written of you?  “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness” (Matthew 9:35).  Notice the superlatives: all the towns and villages…every disease and sickness.  Huge crowds of extremely needy people were pulling on him at every turn, which meant very long days…and nights.  Speaking to individuals, preaching in crammed synagogues, and healing.  Every disease, disability, and deformity was no match for the Maker.  Nothing could muster much resistance to his power, unleashed as he spoke.

Now catch a glimpse of the Savior’s heart: even at a time of fatigue like this, we see that the still pressing crowds didn’t discourage him.  Just the opposite, in fact.  At this crucial time, Jesus “had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 36).  And then he says something surprising: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (v.38).  Notice he doesn’t just wave a magic wand over the crowd and perform ‘pan-healing.’  The Son of God dealt with people individually, and he calls us to do the same.  Healing in all its dimensions is individual work.  And relational work.  The big problem is, there’s just not enough workers.  Then he tells his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest for more such workers.  Every generation has needed them, including ours.  It was in this and another context that he described himself this way.  But what does it mean?  What was he thinking of?

Jesus spoke of the harvest metaphor first in John 4 in Samaria where “he had to go through” (v. 4).  Talk about a place for a harvest!  Jews didn’t even want go through the place, let alone stop off and pick up a bite to eat.  But shop they did while Jesus rested at Jacob’s well (v. 6) and entered into a probing conversation with a local woman with a less-than-stellar reputation.  While the disciples returned with the food, she ran back to town to spread the word that she had found the Messiah.  As the townspeople approached, the lesson of the harvest came up: “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” (v. 35).  Obviously he likened the grain harvest with a harvest of people, or souls.  People are why he came and why we should go.

Later, Jesus repeated the Lord of the harvest title in Matthew, at which point (chapter 10) he commissioned and sent out the 12 disciples to do what he was doing — preaching, casting out demons, healing and other miraculous demonstrations in the towns of Galilee (11:1).  Not long afterwards he sent 72 others into the region of Judea and possibly Perea on a similar mission, describing himself as the Lord of the harvest.  But again we ask, what does this mean?  And what is on his mind when he used this phrase?

We find the answer in Revelation 14.  And it’s not pretty: “I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one ‘like the son of man’ with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.  Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’  So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested” (vs. 14-16).  Lest you think this is the great revival at the end of time predicted by some, it’s not. “Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.  Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because the grapes are ripe.’  The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.  They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press…” (vs. 17-19).  This harvest is not revival, but judgment, and Jesus has had this picture in his mind from all eternity.  Everyone born is slated for this harvest unless you and I reach them first.  Thus the admonition, “I sent you to reap…” (John 4:38).  We do our reaping before he does his.  That’s what life is about, all to his glory.

You have a purpose in history to glorify God.  How focused are you in the reaping process?  Will the Lord of the harvest have less reaping to do because of your diligence in reaping now?