Around the world, and through the centuries, most cultures have celebrated the harvest. Countless different joyful festivals have delighted in the regular rhythms set into creation and acknowledged our dependence on them for the most basic necessity – our daily bread. At a time when our industrialised approach to food makes us forgetful of our dependence, even as it disrupts those rhythms, it is a lesson we would do well to learn.
But the writers of Scripture would not want us to stop there. The dependable rhythms of creation should point us to the dependable kindness of God the Creator. As Paul said to a culture tempted to worship the forces of nature “he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your heart with joy.” (Acts 14:17) As we celebrate the goodness of creation, let us all the more be drawn to the goodness of the Creator who transcends it all.
Ed