Luminescence, Volume 3. C. K. Barrett
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bread.”
“The loveliest little idyll that tradition has transmitted to us.” That is how Goethe described the book of Ruth, and the German poet was a judge of such matters. The book opens in tragedy and ends in sheer romance. It begins with a famine and ends in a harvest field. It contains a lovely love story leading to a romantic wedding. You are left with the picture of a sweet-faced granny crowing over a little boy. And you know that that boy was the destined grandfather of great David and an ancestor of great David’s greater Son. The story is set in the background of a harvest field and it mimes to the swish of the scythes in the golden corn and the greetings of the song of the reapers as they bind the sheaves. That fact makes the book a happy hunting ground for preachers in search of a text for a Harvest Festival.
In it I found the simple and direct message which seems a word in season for us. As definitely as any passage I know the text relates the Harvest to a gracious Divine visitation. Standing in the midst of signs and tokens of an abundant harvest, seated at our well-spread tables, we can change our word, and read the text in the present instead of the past tense and say, “The Lord hath visited His people in giving them bread.” Then the first fact to be emphasized is that of—
THE GRACE OF DIVINE VISITATIONS
That is not how we usually think of Divine visitation. In the presence of some inexplicable tragedy, some judgment of disaster and death, our juries return a verdict of “died by the visitation of God.” We associate plagues and catastrophes with the same visitation, when we quote the words, “Prepare to meet thy God,” we are positively afraid of the meeting. Doubtless God does sometimes come in swift condemnation of judgment of the sins of a people or an individual. But as Isaiah says, that is His “strange work.”
God’s ancient people were versed in this matter. They associated God’s visits with mercy rather than with judgment, with compassion rather than condemnation. God visited His people when He saw their need and heard their sighs. He came down to deliver them. Their statement of redemption was, “God hath visited and redeemed His people.” The day of Jerusalem’s visitation was the season of God’s loving pleading and patient waiting for them to turn to Him.
We ought to learn the lesson, to associate Divine visitations with redemption and blessing. Instead of dreading we ought to welcome and pray for the visits of God, to be thankful that He does not forget us or fail to come to us. We can decorate our church, sit at our tables, because God has seen our need and come down to meet it. Do not, I beg of you, associate God’s visitation only with tragedies. Think of Him as you stand among the golden corn, as you listen to the song of the birds, as you enjoy the good things which are your daily possession. That leads us to the central thought of the text:
OUR DAILY BREAD IS GOD’S GIFT
Day by day we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but when the bread is given we do not always recognize whence it comes. One of the best services a Harvest Festival can render is to remind us of the connection between God and our daily bread. Living in towns and crowded streets we do not hear the song of the reapers or see the wagons laden “with four months’ sunshine bound in sheaves.” We see bread over at some modern bakery and almost think of the loaf as a manufactured article. Today we set the truth of the text to music and sing: “All good gifts around us are sent from Heaven above.”19 We see in the Harvest God’s answer to our daily prayer.
That is not to deny man’s part. In the natural as well as the spiritual, man plants and waters, sows and reaps, grinds and labors; but in both cases, it is true that without God there will be no increase. We talk glibly about the laws of nature and second causes, and those very laws imply a lawgiver and the second causes lead to a great First Cause. Don’t stop your scientific investigation continue it. Trace back far enough and you are sure to come to God. Pay your tribute to the farmer, the miller, the baker, but do not forget that God hath visited us and given us bread, that “He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing.”
Therefore, this day is the festival of the Divine beneficence and should be the occasion of the people’s gratitude and praise. God has visited us in giving us bread. The heart should sing its thanksgiving and the people shew forth His praise. But instead of saying, “God be praised,” we often murmur and complain because the bread is not buttered on both sides and jam and cream added. Bread stands for what satisfies the real needs of life. Most of our discontent springs from our desire for luxuries we do not need and that in some cases we are a good deal better without. What we need is bread, and not too much highly spiced confectionery. There is a book on my shelves called The Durable Satisfactions of Life.20 The writer sees all those satisfactions in the things bread implies—health of a day, mental balance, power to appreciate beauty and truth, the rare delights of friendship, love and home, ties that bind us to the unseen world, and faith which fills even the dark hours of life with the light of immortal hope.
All these are ours, and God did not spare His only Son, but gave Him to be the Bread of Life. Eat your bread with singleness and thankfulness of heart. Try to count your blessings. The task is impossible but it is a good exercise. All you can do, and this you ought to do, is form a grateful heart to sing your Doxology praising God who has visited his people, giving them bread.
19. This is not a reference to the famous song from Godspell, but rather an earlier hymn that actually provides the lyric for both the original hymn and the one from Godspell. Here are the particulars: “Harvest Hymn” by Matthias Claudius (1780).
We plough the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land;But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand:He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.
Chorus:All good gifts around us Are sent from heaven above,Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord For all His love.
He only is the maker of all things near and far;He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star:The winds and waves obey Him, by Him the birds are fed;Much more to us, His children, He gives our daily bread.
20. A book by C. W. Eliot, published in 1910.
“DAVID HARPING BEFORE SAUL”—1 Samuel 16.17, 23
(Preached six times from Lumberhead Green, undated, to Katherine Road 2/24/35)
1 Samuel 16.17, 23 “Saul said unto his servants, ‘provide me now a man that can play well.’ And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and the evil spirit departed from him.”
These words cannot be understood apart from the man to whom they refer. You will have to look at Saul before you look into the words. When you look upon the first king of Israel you are looking upon one whose story is told in the Old Testament. You are also looking upon one whose failure was as complete and tragic as any recorded in Scripture. When Saul is first introduced to us our hearts go out to him. He was a man every inch of him—tall, strong, comely. Modesty mingled with strength, humility with bulk, and a gracious magnanimity with conquering power. He had a keen eye, swift powers of judgment, and was ready and strong in action. Discovered by the man of God, acclaimed by the people, he looked the heaven-sent leader of his people.
But alas! The promise of those early days was blighted. The blossom never heightened into the fruit of great and worthy achievement. He struck a few brave blows for freedom. There were a few bright flashes, but after that the dark. The first king of Israel died by his own hand, a miserable failure, a striking revelation of how, notwithstanding great gifts and early promise, a man may miss his chance, fail in his task, and miss his high destiny. The Bible is a faithful book and there are no stories more powerfully told than those in its pages. You cannot forget the story of