Seedtime and Harvest Will Never Cease

There’s a beautiful feeling after a summer rainstorm. You can stand on the edge of your yard or field – or sports field – draw in a deep breath and see the beauty of land and plants that have been washed clean.

Dust and filth have been washed away. The air is fresh. It smells of growing things. Everything is renewed and refreshed.

I wonder if that’s how Mr. & Mrs. Noah felt as they stood in the big, big doorway of the ark ready to disembarked. Did they pause and take a deep breath of the clean air together? Finally emerging from the boat they shared for more a year with animals, birds, and creatures that move along the ground.

They’re not just leaving the stuffiness, dustiness, and barn smell of the ark. They’re stepping out onto grass and rocks that have dried after the rain and flooding; the great flood that washed away all traces of human corruption.

I don’t want to sound too romantic. I went on service projects after 2 major floods in New Brunswick: first in Burt’s Corners and later in Sussex. I’ve seen destructive force of heavy rains & flooding and the mess it leaves behind. I don’t know how messy things looked for Noah and his family – or if all traces of civilization had been washed away.

But it’s a new start. A new dawn. A blank slate for humankind.

The flood is a challenging story. God deals honestly and forcefully with human sin and corruption. The diagnosis is given in Gen. 6:

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. Genesis 6:5–6 (NIV)

The prescription is very radical:

So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” Genesis 6:7 (NIV)

The message is consistent. God in his righteousness and justice will not put up with human disobedience forever. In his justice and holiness, God punishes sin – and the punishment is death: physical death as in the flood, but also an eternity cut off from his goodness.

Usually, it’s not hard to think of very bad people who deserve punishment. It’s harder to look at your own behaviour critically and honestly and measure your own success against God’s law:

No other gods but the Lord

No idols

Don’t misuse God’s name.

Keep the Sabbath holy.

Honour your Father & Mother.

Don’t murder.

Don’t commit adultery.

Don’t steal.

Don’t give false testimony.

Don’t covet.

You can measure your own success; even on my best days, I don’t get 100% by God’s standard.

But here’s the great thing even about the story of the flood. In his love and compassion, God rescued Noah and his family. God’s rescue plan for Noah points ahead to his ultimate rescue plan. Noah and his family escape the waters of judgement in a boat – the ark.

God’s rescue plan through Jesus, calls for Jesus to take the punishment for human sin upon himself at the cross. Jesus died to free us from sin and death. In Jesus’ resurrection, life and hope and a clean slate are offered.

God invites you to trust in Jesus, just as God invited Noah to trust his plan for building an ark. By faith, you get all the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection: new hope, a new start, a new life w/ God and for God.

As Noah gives thanks to God for delivering his family and the animals from the flood, God responds with new promises. God recognizes that Noah and his family will still struggle with temptation and their sinful nature, “even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood,” god still makes a covenant with Noah:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:21–22 (NIV)

This is the promise that we count on every spring as roll into planting season.

As people who have been rescued from sin and death, we serve and glorify God in our daily work. Some of us are farmers, we care for animals, till the soil, or work in greenhouses. Others of us have different vocations, but we still care for gardens, lawns and houseplants.

The clean smell of soil and the fresh green colour of new growth feels fresh, wholesome, and new. We stand beside our gardens or fields or yards and take a deep, deep breath of the fresh spring air. It’s a new start; the beginning of a new growing season.

Not to be too romantic, there are also rocks to pick, long hours of cultivating, planting and spraying. There are many unknowns about the growing season: we don’t know about the weather, the diseases or pests that may come this year. But we do have God’s promise that summer will follow spring, that fall with follow summer. Seedtime and harvest will come as long as the earth endures.

Today we have spent time in prayer. We embark on this year’s planting in the confidence that God is the one who blesses our work and makes our efforts bear fruit. We trust this year again that God will allow us to gather on Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for another year’s harvest.

Just as God rescued Noah from the punishing waters of the flood, so God has rescued us from punishment and death through Jesus. He’s not going to abandon his people or his creation. God continues to care for his world:

“As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:21–22 (NIV)

We have God’s word on it.