God speaks to us through both his word and his world. Here in the Northern Hemisphere autumn is now well underway and in it I see a message from God.
First, autumn is a season of rejoicing. Although a season that is mixed with dark, chill, wet days mingled with warm, sunny ones, at its best there’s a magnificent glory to autumn. Now, the natural world dresses itself in browns, yellows and reds, golden leaves spin and tumble in the sun, fruit gleams and valleys are draped in silver mists. Autumn is when the natural world celebrates in style! One of the many losses of our modern, stare-at-the-screen urban lifestyle is that we overlook how autumn marks the end of the year for the natural world. We fail to notice in the kaleidoscope of colours the spectacular grand finale of all that bears leaves and fruit. Autumn is a time for us to share in rejoicing over the goodness and splendour of God’s creation. Equally, too, although increasingly ignored by those distanced from fields, farms and forests, this is a time when we can give joyful thanks for how God, through his created world, supplies our need for food.
Second, autumn is a season of reckoning. As the sun sets early and a chill falls on the natural world, autumn whispers to us of endings. However long and glorious summer has been, autumn’s unstoppable and inevitable arrival ends it. Autumn speaks not merely of endings, but of evaluation. For farmers, this is the time of scrutiny and judgement: crops, fruit and grain are examined and weighed. Is there a harvest and is it good? Has there been fruit? Have the rewards of reaping justified the effort of sowing? In the winds of autumn, we humans hear troubling murmurs of our own ending and evaluation. Autumn reminds us inescapably of the passage of time and the limits of life. We talk, after all, of those of advanced age being in ‘the autumn of their life’. It’s not surprising that many of those without hope of an eternity with Christ find autumn troubling and feel it casting a chill shadow over them. Autumn reminds us all that however long and sun-filled a life’s summer we may have enjoyed, it must some day close. As Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, ‘For everything there is a season’ (NLT). Autumn is also a subtle and solemn reminder that our lives do not simply end, but must undergo evaluation by the Lord of the harvest (Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2). Have we produced fruit? Was it abundant? Was it good? Or did we just produce weeds that merely pretended to be fruit? What did we do with all the blessings that we were given? With all the good that was sown in our lives? What will we have to offer when, at the harvest of all things, our lives are examined?
Finally, autumn is a season that speaks of rewarding. In country tradition autumn is associated with celebrations and festivities over what has been harvested. Good fruit – and those who have produced it – are praised. There is here too a spiritual aspect. Those of us who are in any sense biblical Christians, are anxious to defend the idea that we are not saved by works, but by grace. Yet in our firm defence of grace, we risk overlooking the biblical principle of eternal reward, proclaimed loudly throughout the Bible. Look at what Jesus says in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30):
‘His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”’ (Matthew 25:21 NIV)
Other Bible passages promise the same thing (see Luke 6:35, Colossians 3:23-24, James 1:12 and Revelation 22:12). Those who have trusted Christ and worked for his kingdom can look forward to their life and labours being rewarded fully and eternally. We who have been faithful servants in this world will be those who are given rich benefits in the next.
Pause to rejoice in nature’s celebration of the completed year this autumn. Yet don’t overlook the message autumn carries that one day there will be a reckoning and we need to be ready for it. But if you are a believer in Christ and you have served him faithfully, be encouraged by autumn; it’s a reminder that the Lord will see your harvest and you will be rewarded beyond all expectation. Now that’s a thought to brighten even the darkest autumn day!
J.John
Reverend Canon
