In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the true gift of God, the Lord offers humankind life, forgiveness, and blessing for all who believe in him for salvation. As Jesus promises, he offers to all who hear that living water which becomes, within each one who believes, a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Jesus compared our natural ability to predict seasons, with our understanding of the readiness of the harvest. He challenged the disciples to see, to lift up their eyes, and to see that the fields of humankind are white for harvest. He was sending them to enter into the labor of all those who represented the Father before, to share the Good News of life with those who are ready to receive it.

Make us ready, O God, to see that the fields are white for harvest, ready and willing to receive the Good News of life granted to all in the name of Jesus. Amen.

On the hymn, Amazing Grace: “At the level of imagery, the poem is built around a great contrast that puts two worlds on a collision course. One is a world of sin and fallenness—not just spiritually in a sinner’s personal life, but in the whole earthly order. The vocabulary continually keeps this world of decay and misery alive in our awareness, with words like wretch, lost, blind, dangers, toils, snares, fail, cease, dissolve like snow, and refuse to shine. Set over against this lower world of unideal experience is an upper world of ideal experience, portrayed with words like grace, found, good, hope, shield and portion, joy and peace, shining as the sun. The poem thus roots us in the fallen earthly order but promises us the best that can be imagined. It is a song of hope, comfort, and confidence, with misery functioning as a foil to heighten the vision of bliss.”

~ Leland Ryken, 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life: A Closer Look at Their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2019. pp. 22-23.

Let God Arise! Seasonal Focus
Jesus, the Light of the World, John 9.1-41

Book Reading
Peterson, Engaging with God