This was the week when the sun began to shine! It had had a couple of months off and so the Met office’s announcement of stable areas of high pressure was greeted by a mixture of relief and jubilation. The land, so long soaked in rain, began to firm up. Drains that had been blocked were now accessible and cleared to hasten the departure of the surface water. The sound of the combine harvesters could be heard as they gingerly made their way into the soft ground of the grain fields. The heads of the grain, threatening to sprout if left any longer, were speedily carted off in high sided trailers to be checked out for quality, moisture content, etc at the mill. In the meadows, where hopes of a late crop of hay had looked unlikely, the mowers were out and the hay bobs were spinning the wet grass in the autumn sunlight in an effort to have it dried for the bailer before the fine weather ended. Not that there is any sign of it ending as I write. The swallows, who were lining up on the wires getting ready for their long flight to Africa, seem to be putting off the departure date to enjoy the sunshine. We too can enjoy it remembering God’s promise, given after the global flood; “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” The promise is confirmed by the rainbow, the covenant sign given by a covenant keeping God. But this is not the way it seems to be for a lot of people with famine and flood reported in many lands. The promise of seedtime and harvest gets overturned by vicious weather patterns. Some might put these down to global warming but the Bible says the over-arching reason is that God has subjected his creation to frustration and decay. Rusting cars, sick bodies and the universal aging process all testify to it. We are not here forever! St Paul, writing to the church at Rome, says there is a parallel between the struggle in creation and the struggle against sin in the life of the believer. He writes, ”We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”. The awaited new heavens and new earth he sees as mirroring the believer who is described as “a new creation” awaiting the complete transformation when he will really be like his saviour Jesus Christ. As St John puts it:- “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Seedtime and Harvest point us to that great harvest day when the angels will be the reapers and all those in Christ will be gathered in the heavenly home. Make sure you are there. Trust Jesus.