(I want to listen to this sermon)

Reading:          Jn.4:1-45

Text:                Jn.4:35 "Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest."

Harvesting - Don't put off to the future what should be done now.

You know the situation well I think. Jesus and His disciples were on their way to the north and the most direct route took them straight through Samaritan territory. Such was the hostility between Jews and Samaritans many Jews would go on a longer more circuitous to avoid even putting thief foot on Samaritan territory!

The journey has been a tiring one, at least for Jesus, and He stays sitting by the well while His followers go off to find food in the city. An interesting little cameo of the humanity of Jesus – John doesn't hesitate to ascribe full deity to Jesus but the incarnation was oh so real too – Jesus knew what it was to be weary!

While the disciples were away a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water and when Jesus spoke to her she was most surprised because she knew all about the long-standing hostility that existed between Samaritans and Jews.

The disciples in turn are themselves surprised to find Jesus in conversation with a woman when they return with the food they've bought. After all Jewish rabbis generally taught that it was bad enough if one talked to his own wife in public let alone an unrelated woman! I wonder if they knew just what sort of moral life this particular had been living – if they did they would doubtless have been all the more astonished!

The return of the disciples signalled the end of Jesus' interview with the Samaritan woman and slips away to go and speak to the folk of her own town about her recent encounter with Jesus. As she returns to the town she leaves the water jar there. Has she forgotten it? Probably not but rather she has left it so that the man who had so unexpectedly asked her for a drink might drink.

The disciples haven't asked Jesus any questions about why He was talking with such a woman and with her departure their thoughts quickly turn to matters of food. They had left Jesus alone and weary to get bread and now they wanted Him to eat some so that He might rebuild His strength.

And so the scene is set for Jesus' next discussion with His disciples

As the disciples urge Jesus to eat He takes advantage of the situation to show them the things that really matter for Him and eating is not Number 1 on the list.

Beginning with their own thoughts about food Jesus replies that His food is something very different. Of course He is not talking about bread and butter but as often was the case the disciples interpret Him in too literal a sense.

(The amount of times that the disciples do this and totally misunderstand what Jesus is really talking about should perhaps warn us about always wanting ourselves to follow a literalistic interpretation of the Bible. There are of course times when it is right and proper to do so but there are plenty of times when we must not. We must learn to understand contexts and the different types of language that are being employed.)

So the disciples immediate reaction is to question among themselves whether or not someone else had brought food for Jesus to eat.

But Jesus is not talking about the physical satisfaction that comes from eating a good meal – He is talking rather about the satisfaction He finds in always doing His Father's will. His bodily appetites will take second place to His desire and concern to do His Father's will and to accomplish the work His Father sent Him to do.

If Job might declare:

Job 23:12 "I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food."

How much more so the Lord Jesus Christ!

There are other indications of this priority in the OT when Moses spoke to the Israelites in the wilderness:

Deut.8:3 "And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

Jesus quoted this verse as the tempter came to Him in His wilderness. Both Matthew and Luke give us accounts of His temptations and both tell us that the tempter came to a hungry Jesus challenging Him to work a miracle to satisfy His own physical appetite. This is how Jesus countered him:

Mt.4:4 "But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’"

The most important thing in Jesus' life was to do His Father's will. This was His chief priority and motivation. Is it ours?

Come the end of His earthly ministry Jesus was able to pray His Father in Jn.17:4 that He had accomplished the work He had been to do. Will we be able to say anything in any way similar?

But Jesus is not content to leave the matter there with generalities so He carries on so that He might point out some new truths to His followers. The way He begins is to involve them as He asks them a question. It is the question that forms our text this evening:

Jn.4:35 "Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest."

This particular question wasn't really looking for an answer; it was a rhetorical question as the answer was common knowledge.

Yes, they could look at the seasons and tell whether the harvest was at hand or whether it was still some way off. They knew that a lapse of time was needed between the sowing of the seed and the reaping of the crops. Again an agricultural community would not have the slightest problem with this and would plan their lives accordingly.

In our day we might struggle a little bit more to know just long we might have to wait for the harvest but our timescale for other things is easy for us to understand. We know from the appearance of mince pies in the supermarkets that Christmas is on the way and before long we begin to hear that dreaded countdown – so-many shopping days left before Christmas. We know instinctively that preparations must be made and we know whether we're on schedule or not, don't we?

Well, Jesus says, the time scale is altogether different on the spiritual scene. Whereas they might face a long wait before the crops of the field are ready for harvesting the spiritual crop is already ripe. For them to wait now would be highly inappropriate and the crop ruined. Spiritual seed sown now does not need a long lapse of time before it can produce fruit – it can and is happening now, says Jesus. The time has come when sower and reaper can rejoice together.

What is Jesus talking about? Have you any idea? Behind Jesus' words here stands the prophecy of Amos – listen to what that prophet had declared centuries earlier:

Amos 9:13 "“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it."

Amos was speaking of the Messianic era and described in these incredibly productive and fruitful ways. The crops and the harvest are so abundant that the reaper is portrayed as actually getting ahead of the sower – such is the richness of the period of the Messiah.

But do you see the Messiah has now come. Jesus is that Messiah and already the fruitfulness of gospel ministry is progressing mightily.

You see, just a few minutes before Jesus had been talking to that Samaritan woman who had such a dreadful background and what had happened in the course of one short conversation? Her life had been turned upside down and she had become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ! She has just beetled back to the town where she lived and had shared with those who lived there – some of them too had believed and they're even now on their way out to meet Jesus and find out more about Him for themselves!

Isn't it tempting to read Jesus' words concerning the fields white for harvest as referring to the crowds already making their way towards Him across the fields from the town?

Others had worked too before the disciples had arrived on the scene – the prophets of the past had fulfilled their ministries and much more recently John the Baptist had exercised his ministry of preparation but now the Messianic era was begun and they could, they must reap!

The work of evangelism would not and will not prove to be an unfruitful work!

On at least two other occasions used similar harvesting language as He sent out groups of His disciples on mission:

Mt.9:35-38 "And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

And again:

Lk.10:1-3 "After this the Lord appointed seventy–two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest."

Wasn't that the case for them but our situation is so different from theirs and we can't expect such prompt results today?

Well our situation may very well be different from theirs but are there not also a number of remarkable similarities that we should fix upon?

Are we not living in the same Messianic age that Jesus inaugurated? Is this not the same period in which great fruit and abundant harvests have been prophesied? Is the message not the same that we have to preach? Is the gospel not still the power of God unto salvation? Is God's hand not the same as it was then or are we obliged to respond in the affirmative to the questions we find the Lord addressing to us in the prophet Isaiah? Must we really say that His "hand is shortened, that it cannot redeem?" and that He has "no power to deliver?"

Ah, you say but the circumstances are so unpromising with us today.

Yes, but was it any better then?

Just look at the unpromising place where this encounter with the Samaritan woman and the inhabitants of the Samaritan village took place – Samaria!! These folk were despised by the Jews because they didn't have the whole Bible of the day – they only recognised the first five books of the Bible. They had set up an unauthorised Temple of their own, rejecting the true revelation of God. And yet and yet… it takes just one conversation and lives are transformed! Such is the power of the gospel!

Now I can't promise you that every single mention of the gospel will produce immediate fruit – but I am telling you that this gospel is capable of doing just that!

Yes, we may not see fields white for harvest all around us and some of the fields we do see may be full of stones that must slowly and laboriously be cleared away but still the gospel can take root and flourish when God so pleases to accompany its proclamation with Holy Spirit power and conviction!

Jesus knew as He sent His disciples out into the fields to reap a harvest that He was sending them out as sheep amongst wolves – the circumstances were hardly propitious then were they? But send them out He did and as they went they became known as the men who turned the world upside down!

And the gospel spread. Persecution couldn't stop its progress and the passage of time has not stopped it. How many millions today own allegiance to Jesus Christ and each one because the word has been sown and the harvest reaped to eternal life! This is the Messianic age – it is the age in which Jesus has promised has promised to build His church and it is in this age that the gates of hell cannot prevail but must give way under the onslaught of gospel proclamation!

How are we to look ahead? What are we to do? We are to have confidence in the gospel. We are to have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and we are to pray and proclaim. Our passage speaks about labour and we may well have to labour hard. We may well have to face hostility but fruit is what Christ declares is out there, fruit that He intends to be harvested.

May God grant that we give ourselves fully to Him and to His cause. May we be concerned to accomplish the work, whatever work that might be, that He has given us to accomplish. And may me not put off to some imaginary tomorrow the duties that should be carried out today!

And to God alone be the Glory.