Harvest festivals are part of many cultures worldwide. Often a harvest festival is accompanied by a display of the region’s produce. My hometown still has an annual Fall Fair, where tractors pull floats in the parade and farmers enter competitions for their livestock, or even attempt to grow prize-winning size pumpkins.
There is a spirit of celebration when good food from the earth is seen filling storehouses and markets. In times and places where refrigeration wasn’t available, a good harvest meant food could be dried, smoked or pickled and would keep a community alive through a long winter or dry season. Harvest was a time when you “gathered in” – put things in barns and storehouses, prepared and made ready for what was to come.
“I could see no Temple in the city, for the Lord, the Almighty God, and the Lamb are themselves its Temple. The city has no need for the light of sun or moon, for the splendour of God fills it with light and its radiance is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. The city’s gates shall stand open day after day—and there will be no night there. Into the city they will bring the splendours and honours of the nations.” (Rev. 21:22-26)
Every good fruit from the harvest that Jesus spoke of will be on display in heaven – a monumental celebration of God’s goodness!
We have much to be thankful for, but most of all, that God has pursued us and desires to live with us. He is gathering in all those who will live with him eternally in his kingdom.