John 4: 'One sows and another reaps'

There's a lot in this book, from Jesus's willingness to be seen with a sinful woman, to the fact that he associates with Samaritans, to his healing of the official's son. What sticks with me, though is this passage:

31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."

32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

33Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

34"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do 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. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

It's interesting to me that Jesus saw his times as the harvest. How shall we interpret this? He associates doing God's work with eating, particularly his conversation with the Samaritan woman. Bringing her to God is "harvesting" her. So how did she grow in preparation for the harvest? What made her ripe? What was the hard work done by others? What is the seed?

If I could pursue the analogy, I see it a couple possible ways: God planted us as the seed. The seed is neutral, just the nugget of identity. The "hard work" done by "others" is a combination of the values education we receive from our parents, one the one hand, and the historical church and writings which precede us. Moses did the hard work. The writers of the Torah did the hard work. Thomas Aquinas did the hard work. St. Augustine did the hard work. Jeremiah did the hard work. David did the hard work. Solomon did the hard work...Dante Alighieri...The Gospel writers...Paul the apostle...Nate Saint...St. Peter...Billy Graham...Thomas More...Martin Luther...G.K. Chesterton...C.S. Lewis...John Bunyan...Our Sunday School teachers.

We reap their harvest, and work for the next crop, and the next, and the next.

What if the seed is our sinfulness? What if the seed is what we took from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? And after we fall, we wrestle with these questions, with our dual nature until we are reaped and returned. Salvation through Jesus is the harvest, while the old Hebraic law was the hard work. Laws regulating everything from what not to eat to whom not to sleep with. And closeness to God was measured by close adherence to the Law. Hard work, indeed. Jesus is the reaper, not minimizing the importance of the hard work which came before, but bringing it to its inevitable conclusion.

Just as you can't reap a harvest without the work which came before, Jesus's sacrifice comes only after the law has been planted in us. The law is inextricably linked to our forgiveness. Without the law, forgiveness is meaningless. Without growth, through hard work teaching and training our children in the Bible, and in moral instruction, reaping won't provide any nourishment.

Prayer: God help me to do the hard work. Help me to strive for you and show others what a Christ-filled life can look like. Let me do my share of the hard work.