In the northern hemisphere in which we live, the month of October signals the harvest season. The fall season brings urban dwellers like us to nurseries and pumpkin patches where we vicariously join in reaping the bounty of garden and field. Even if we’ve never participated in bringing in the fall harvest, we surely enjoy the sights and smells of the autumn season (pumpkin spice latte, anyone?). The truth is, you don’t have to travel very far outside the suburban sprawl to more rural areas where there are large fields with crops like corn and soybeans that are being brought in.
Recently, my wife and I did a bit of unplanned harvesting from our backyard. Over the past year or two, a large elderberry bush has grown up along our fence line. Lo and behold, with the coming of autumn, the tiny berries (see picture below) turned a deep cobalt blue color, signaling that they were ready to be picked. The clusters of berries are supported by branches that also turn a purple color, again signaling that the fruit is ripe. On a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, we did some foraging of these berries directly from our own backyard. We learned that the berries, although like a blueberry, are much smaller, and really stain your hands, so it’s a good idea to wear plastic gloves when working with elderberries. But what do you do with them?
After doing a bit of research, my wife discovered that elderberries are really something of a super food! They are high in antioxidants, support immune health, high in Vitamin C, and are believed to help with cold and flu symptoms as well. (The Pros and Cons of Elderberry (healthline.com). We chose to use the fruit to make an elderberry syrup as an aid to health (vs. a topping for pancakes or dessert). The bounty of creation is all around us, especially evident in autumn.
In the fast-paced world that we live in, the fall season invites us to slow down and marvel at the richness and beauty of God’s good creation. Spend some time in the outdoor cathedral of creation in these autumn days. The Master Artist who has brought all things into existence is painting the leaves gorgeous hues of gold, russet, crimson, and other colors for us to enjoy. The crisp autumn air and brilliant sunshine invite us to go outside and explore what may be in our own backyard and beyond. Spend an evening outside around the firepit and look up at the night sky, giving thanks, as David did in Psalm 8: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
Sometimes the vastness and wonder of creation may cause us to feel, like David did, puny and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Are we just mere specks of dust that are here and gone? Or is there something more? The glorious truth is that there is indeed something more – much more. Although creation itself cannot tell us what this is, God’s Word does. That glorious truth is that we have been created in God’s own image, and even more wonderfully recreated through the cleansing blood of God’s own Son who died for us that we might live for him. God, who is revealed in the vastness and wonder of his creation, is most fully revealed in the Person of his own Son, Jesus Christ. As Paul the apostle writes, it is in Jesus, who is “before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
From the elderberry bush in my backyard to the mysteries of galaxies yet to be explored, all things hold together in Jesus. That is our confidence and our joy. In this autumn season when the harvest is underway, we look ahead to that great harvest at the end of time when Jesus will fully and finally reveal himself as this hymn stanza puts it:
Even so, Lord, quickly come
To Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified,
In Thy garner to abide:
Come with all Thine angels, come,
Raise the glorious harvest home.
(Lutheran Service Book 892, stanza 4)