May 22, 2022 | by Pastor Josh Tate | series: Missions Emphasis
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There is a sense as you read the Gospels that Jesus saw a lot of things that others did not. He saw hidden motives. He saw hidden needs. He saw hidden sin and hidden potential. He saw a hidden future and the hidden stratagems of the enemy as they tried vainly to change the future God had foreordained. Much of Jesus’ interactions with humanity as captured in the Gospels portray a clear-eyed Jesus addressing souls that were utterly blinded to the spiritual realities that surrounded them. And on one occasion, like a person describing a scene to people who were blind, he pronounced that the fields were white unto harvest. (Matthew 9:35-38, Luke 10:2) The disciples saw no harvest, but Jesus did. What do we see when we drive through town? Weeds or wheat?
Not only did Jesus see much that his disciples did not see, but he also often understood what was seen differently than them. In the same passages where Jesus proclaimed the existence of an abundant, but as yet un-harvested, crop we are told that Jesus looked on the masses of humanity and felt compassion toward them saying that they were “harassed and helpless.” Instead of looking upon them as weeds to be pulled and cast away he saw them as a desirable thing to be harvested and gathered in. What do we see in the face of our neighbors? A person to be gathered in?
However, the most surprising thing to me about these parallel passages in Matthew 9 and Luke 10 is what Jesus told the disciples to do now that He had made them aware of the fields white unto harvest? Give it a read and see for yourself? It’s a command for us too.
