08 Thursday 03-05
John 04:31-38
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
33 So the disciples said to one another,
“Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
35 Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest’?
But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.
36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life,
so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37 For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.
Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
This scene in John’s Gospel
occurs immediately after the encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
This is the work of the Father that sustains Jesus more than earthly food.
It is also an example of the harvest to which Jesus refers.
When we encounter the broken or outcast of this world, and offer them the Gospel of Jesus,
not only they are healed; we too are healed and sustained by the effort.