Do not ye say, that there are yet four months and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest.
Jesus had just spoken with a Samaritan woman at a well. Now He sets two clocks side by side for His disciples: the farmer's calendar, with four months still to run, and a harvest of souls ready that very hour.
Jesus was not making a general point about the world. Something in front of Him prompted the words.
While He sat by the well the Lord had ministered to one poor woman's soul. But now it seems He lifted up His eyes and saw the people streaming out of the city to meet Him. He drew the disciples' attention to the sight. God's blessing on the soil to produce an abundant harvest was still four months away. Yet there was a harvest to reap at once. It came from seed sown long before, which had sprouted and was now ripening fast in the presence of Him who will one day appear to Israel in their land as the "Sun of Righteousness."
The saying about four months belonged to fields the disciples could measure. The Lord points them to another crop, one that never has an off-season.
First, the Lord would engage us with the spiritual harvest, and not the natural. If the disciples were to reap the natural harvest they would have to wait four months. The spiritual need is always present.
The startling part is where the ripe grain stood. Samaria was not on the disciples' map of God's work.
He then showed them, as already white for harvest, fields their faith had never surveyed. They knew of no fields except those once divided among the tribes. In their view God's farming had to stay inside that sacred fence. Samaria, they judged, was now outside it, nothing but an unclean place. But there was a secret with God. It was the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners, who had now gone out with seed. His toil had prepared a harvest for the reapers on the defiled plains of Samaria... The harvest in Judea was plenteous, but in Samaria it was ripe for the reapers.
If ripeness means readiness, what had made these people ready? It was not their goodness.
Whatever the times and seasons of the natural harvest, the fields spiritually were ripe for the reaper. Man, the world, deserved judgment. But the very state of sin that calls for judgment is the state God uses for His call of grace. The gospel comes on the ground of man's total ruin, so it levels all distinctions. Jew, Samaritan, Gentile — what is any of them now but a sinner?
The disciples who heard this were slow to act on it. Someone else gathered the Samaritan harvest later.
They may speak of harvest being four months away. No doubt the great harvest of the coming kingdom can only come in God's time. But for those who have eyes to see, the fields were already white for harvest. Thirsty souls were ready for the water of the word of God, and only needed someone to find them... Yet none of them seemed ready to respond, even after the Spirit of God had come at Pentecost; and Philip... with a fervent gospel heart, goes to Samaria first to reap a bountiful harvest (Acts 8).
Looking takes discernment, because no two fields are alike.
Fresh from Judea, where they had enjoyed no reaping, they found at Sychar a crop ready for the sickle. The Samaritans had been taught to expect the Messiah, so once they knew of Him they were willing to receive Him. To have tried to reap in Judea would have been labour with little return. To have started sowing at Sychar would have shown a lack of discernment about the condition of souls in that city... The work in one place is no measure of what the work in another should be. And a labourer greatly blessed in one place cannot assume the next field will be ready for his sickle too.
Jesus tells them to raise their eyes, not to travel.
Our Lord said, "Lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest." The opportunities are not far off. They are within reach of our eyes. Never was there a day when it was more urgent that opportunities should be grasped.
- Look up. The disciples were watching the calendar. Jesus was watching people walk out of Sychar toward Him.
- Look now. The natural crop needed four more months. The need of souls is always present, so there is nothing to wait for.
- Look wider. The ripe field lay in Samaria, a place the disciples had ruled out of God's farming.
- Look honestly. Ruin is what ripens a field. The state that deserves judgment is the state grace uses, and it puts Jew, Samaritan and Gentile in one class: sinners.
- Look near. The opportunity is within reach of your eyes. Read each field for itself: Sychar was ripe, Judea was not, and Philip reaped Samaria later.
He that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together.
The disciples come back with food while the Samaritan woman's town streams out toward Jesus. He turns them from lunch to a ripe harvest, and names three things: the reaper's pay, the fruit he gathers, and a joy shared with workers who never saw the crop.
The wage here goes to the reaper, not the sower. One writer finds that striking.
It is remarkable that the Lord speaks here about reaping rather than sowing. Sowing, of course, goes on, and has its place elsewhere, as in Matthew 13. In earlier times it was sowing rather than reaping. Now, in this day of grace, reaping is what marks the time — fruit not only of God's past dealings, but of His coming and mighty work.
So who did the sowing? It happened long before this day.
The prophets had worked (the woman was expecting the Christ), and so had John the Baptist. The disciples were only reaping, but the fields were white for harvest. In the very worst times, even when judgment is close at hand, God has His good part. Faith sees it and takes comfort in it.
The reaper already draws pay. One writer says the pay comes in two stages.
The wages: the first instalment comes in this world, through fellowship in service with the great Worker Himself. The servants will receive the full reward in glory.
The full reward belongs to a coming day, and to more workers than the twelve.
For their work, the disciples would receive their wages. They would value that reward highly. John showed the same in his letter to the elect lady and her children, when he wrote, "Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward" (2 John 8). This reward they will have from Christ in the day of His glory in having part with Him in His kingdom. These "wages" are not for the twelve alone, but for all who serve our Lord Jesus in faithfulness here below.
The fruit gathered is not a thing. It is people.
The fruit reaped for eternal life is people. The labours of the Lord's servants bring them to enjoy the blessings of eternal life. Here the fruit is gathered in. Soon those won for Christ's glory will be on display in that day, even as Paul wrote, "For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy" (1 Thess. 2:19-20).
Set that beside ordinary work, and the contrast is sharp:
The fruit of this service is lasting. For his natural labour, man only secures the things that perish in the using. In this spiritual service the labourer "gathers fruit to eternal life."
Harvest is visible; ploughing is not. People credit whoever holds the sickle, and the Lord corrects that instinct.
How ready men are to judge a worker's usefulness by the apparent results of his work! How ready they are, at harvest time, to treat the reapers as the one and only class of labourers who have worked the soil! Not so the Lord. He knows who have broken up the ground and sown the seed in the sunless days of autumn and winter, or in the windy days of spring. And when the harvest is reaped and gathered into the barn, He will remember them. He will acknowledge the share they have had in the work carried on for Him on earth.
One writer argues that this joy must include the Lord Himself, since He is both sower and reaper.
Then all will know in power that He was the beginner, sustainer, and end of all true service, uniting in Himself the two characters of sower and reaper. This rejoicing together of sowers and reapers must include Himself. "Rejoice together" — what would that mean apart from Him? Your work may be sowing only, and that is not as pleasant as reaping. But if it is His will, His Spirit in us will say, "Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." Soon it will be eternal joy together in the rest above.
That reshapes how a servant chooses his work — whether to aim at what pays off now or at what pays off then.
If we work for the present we may reap our own harvest, but it will be a poor one. If we sow for the glory that is to come, if we sow by faith, others will reap it — but we shall rejoice together.
- Season — this day of grace is a time for reaping, not sowing; the prophets and John the Baptist put the seed in long before.
- Wages — the reaper draws his first pay now; Christ gives the full reward in the day of His glory, to every faithful servant and not the twelve alone.
- Fruit — he gathers people into eternal life; ordinary work secures only what perishes in the using.
- Memory — men credit the reaper, but the Lord knows who broke up the ground in the sunless months. He will acknowledge their share.
- Together — the joy waits so that sower, reaper and the Lord Himself share it. So sow by faith for the coming glory, even if someone else reaps.