The Reaping

I have been reading through Revelation lately.  I have been working my way through the Journey through the Bible guide as I go.*  I have also spent time going over the text again to really think about it and let the message sink in a bit more.  Sometimes when I do this poetry is the way I process it all.  That is what happened for me this week.  Here is a bit of the journey I have been traveling in God's Word:

Revelation 14:14-20

"I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.  Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”  So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.  Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.”  The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them in to the great winepress of God’s wrath.  They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia."

The Reaping

The time for the reaping has come.

Sharp sickles gather in the crop—

A harvest of hearts

Ripe with what their lives have sown.

A crop that has died

To rise as stalks gathered close;

Having received the gift of the cross long ago,

Meeting the end that leads to life.

Another crop that has spent its time ripening

Connected to the wrong kind of vine.

These impressive clusters of dark red, collected in a bad bunch,

Now crushed in a wrathful winepress; in the end, the blood flows.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we realize that we will reap what our lives have sown.  May we find that as we trust Christ and lay our lives down to follow him that we live fully and abundantly.

Jessica :)

*I would definitely recommend this study resource.  It discusses Revelation in a way that is very applicable to life in the present. In this, I have found it challenging me to live as Christ has called me to live and drawing my attention to other lessons I feel like God has been teaching me in other areas of my life, especially the way I interact with the world around me.