Harvest is coming
He sends you abundant showers (Joel 2:23)
I vaguely feel that you cannot be English and not be interested in rain. I do not mean by this that you keep collections of different types of rainfall in a cupboard in your bathroom. I mean that you are routinely caught up in looking at the weather and making plans accordingly. In our house the washing, bike rides, trampoline volleyball, and the vegetable garden are all governed by rainfall. With my last teaching job I even checked the local climate before accepting the post (if you're interested Oxfordshire is pretty perfect for gardening as long as you don't mind the occasional hard frost).
The people of Israel were (and are) similarly exercised but for slightly different reasons. They have two potential seasons for rain. From May to September it doesn't rain. Then come the former rains (yoreh). These are really winter rains and run predictably from October to March, peaking in January. While one might prefer that to be it for a really good crop the soil needs the latter rains (malkosh). These are much heavier and would cause flooding if they fell in October, but on already soft soil they provide the ideal conditions for a second sowing to grow and flourish into the hot dry weather of the summer. They are less predictable, but when they come the harvest is abundant.
So God's promise of latter rains is a promise of great blessing. This year's harvest may be lost, but next year's will make up for it. And here we have the heart of Joel's message. God may appear to have let you down, it may seem that the one you trust and worship is far away, but it is not so. He's just getting a run up, so to speak, to do great things. This is so often the case in the experience of God's people. After persecution the church grows, after hardship God's people find new energy in worship, after suffering comes joy. Even death is not a dead end but a doorway. Those who hold on to God in the hardship find, when they come out, that it was really he that was holding on to them, and now the grip is so firm nothing can tear them apart. As Joel might have put it, just wait and see what the Lord can do among you in these unpredictable times.
I vaguely feel that you cannot be English and not be interested in rain. I do not mean by this that you keep collections of different types of rainfall in a cupboard in your bathroom. I mean that you are routinely caught up in looking at the weather and making plans accordingly. In our house the washing, bike rides, trampoline volleyball, and the vegetable garden are all governed by rainfall. With my last teaching job I even checked the local climate before accepting the post (if you're interested Oxfordshire is pretty perfect for gardening as long as you don't mind the occasional hard frost).
The people of Israel were (and are) similarly exercised but for slightly different reasons. They have two potential seasons for rain. From May to September it doesn't rain. Then come the former rains (yoreh). These are really winter rains and run predictably from October to March, peaking in January. While one might prefer that to be it for a really good crop the soil needs the latter rains (malkosh). These are much heavier and would cause flooding if they fell in October, but on already soft soil they provide the ideal conditions for a second sowing to grow and flourish into the hot dry weather of the summer. They are less predictable, but when they come the harvest is abundant.
So God's promise of latter rains is a promise of great blessing. This year's harvest may be lost, but next year's will make up for it. And here we have the heart of Joel's message. God may appear to have let you down, it may seem that the one you trust and worship is far away, but it is not so. He's just getting a run up, so to speak, to do great things. This is so often the case in the experience of God's people. After persecution the church grows, after hardship God's people find new energy in worship, after suffering comes joy. Even death is not a dead end but a doorway. Those who hold on to God in the hardship find, when they come out, that it was really he that was holding on to them, and now the grip is so firm nothing can tear them apart. As Joel might have put it, just wait and see what the Lord can do among you in these unpredictable times.
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| West country wild flowers |
What does rain represent spiritually?
ReplyDeleteIt is associated with life and growth regarding birth and rebirth. Christians use water for baptisms to symbolize spiritual death and resurrection. In other words, it is a clear symbol for spiritual births. And in literature, life is formed when rain appears; it suggests a spiritual birth as well....
Rain also has a renewal and rebirth aspect to it. As the saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” It can symbolize a good thing coming after a bad time or it can just mean the washing away of the old and regrowing something better...
And..An interesting fact about Noah...
Noah entered the ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered..