Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe. This first image from today’s reading from Revelation, that of the harvest, might call to mind scenes familiar to any who have taken long road trips through the countryside: vast acres of grain and corn, or of soybeans and cotton. It is an image of abundant fruitfulness, the fruitfulness of God’s salvific plan on earth, realized in the witness and good works of all who love and serve Him and harvested at the final judgment.
We also have a second image, that of the earth’s vintage, which will be thrown into the great wine press of God’s fury. This image of judgment is perhaps less palatable for some of us today than that of the harvest. Yet the vintage, too, is an image of salvation, for it reminds us that in the final account, evil is not compatible with God and will be utterly destroyed.
Faced with these two images of the harvest and the vintage, let us examine ourselves today, noting where we have brought forth good fruit and where bad. And since we know with Paul that all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God, let us confidently approach the throne of grace and throw ourselves on God’s mercy, knowing that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.