I have long been intrigued by the comment of Jesus in John 4:35 where He says: “Do you not say, It is yet four months, and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white to harvest already.” (Emphasis added)

Since I first heard the song by Robin Mark where he also uses the same reference, I have been doubly intrigued:

“These are the days of Elijah,
Declaring the word of the Lord:
And these are the days of Your servant Moses,
Righteousness being restored.
And though these are days of great trial,
Of famine and darkness and sword,
Still, we are a voice in the desert crying
‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord.’

Behold He comes riding on the clouds,
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call;
Lift your voice, it’s the year of jubilee,
Out of Zion’s hill salvation comes.

These are the days of Ezekiel,
The dry bones becoming as flesh;
And these are the days of Your servant David,
Rebuilding the temple of praise.
These are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white in the world,
And we are the labourers in the vineyard,
Declaring the word of the Lord.”

Today, I decided to research this word of Jesus and eventually I came to an understanding which satisfied my head, my heart and my spirit. What is more, it speaks to Christians today, just as did the original words, to His disciples.

As He spoke the words, Jesus has a couple of things in mind which He chose to state in the form of an agricultural parable and in an agriculturally relevant statement, as He did quite often at other times.

First of all, we need to know there were two harvest times in Israel at the time of Jesus. The harvest of the winter wheat, was just after Passover (Easter time); the other was in the autumn, before winter set in. Jesus here, however, was talking about the winter wheat harvest, which was four months away. We know this, because his description of the fields being “white” is correct and accurate for winter wheat.

Jesus told his disciples that although it was then four months before Passover, to look up and look at the fields – all white and ready for harvest. When the disciples looked up, they would have seen with their worldly eyes a slightly different scenario from the that which Jesus was describing. First, the fields were green, not white, as there were still four months of the growing season to go. Secondly, there was a whole town coming to meet them, all dressed in white.

To understand just what was happening, we need to recall what had occurred half an hour or so before Jesus spoke His words.

Jesus and His disciples were passing through Sychar in Samaria when Jesus, weary from His journey, had sat down by a well while his disciples went into town in search of food. As He sat by the well, Jesus entered into a conversation with a local woman, revealing Himself to her, for who He truly was. After hearing Jesus and acknowledging Him as a prophet “The woman then left her water-pot and went into the city and said to the men, ‘Come see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Is this One not the Christ?’ And they went out of the city and came to Him” (John 4:28-30).

Verse 4:35 takes place as the men of the city came to meet Jesus, the man who may be the Christ. What was significant, was that these men came out to see Jesus, were all wearing white, as white was the traditional dress of the Samaritans. When Jesus said “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white to harvest already” he was referring to this “field” of Samaritan seekers who were approaching him, all dressed in white; a veritable field of humanity ready to be harvested for the Kingdom of God. To paraphrase John 4:35, Jesus was saying to His disciples: “You tell me that it is four months before the white fields of winter wheat can be harvested, but I tell you, this field of Samaritans, all dressed in white, are ready to be harvested for the Kingdom of God, right now!”

Jesus was right. John 4:40-43 continues:

“Then as the Samaritans had come to Him, they begged Him that He would stay with them. And He stayed there two days.
And many more believed because of His own word.
And they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of your saying, for we have heard Him ourselves and know that this is truly the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
And after two days He departed from there and went into Galilee.”

Jesus was seeing with His spiritual eyes, and not His natural eyes. He could see what was on the hearts of these Samaritan men who were desperate for the Messiah and He stayed with them for two days, teaching and preaching to them.

As born-again Christians, we can learn a great deal from this one verse from Jesus. First, we need to learn to see with our spiritual eyes; to see things as they really are, not as our natural eyes and our warped worldview lead us to believe is true. We need to learn to use our spiritual eyes and then use them at all times so God can reveal to us the truth.

Secondly, the reason story of the woman by the well is important is because, among other things, the Jews and the Samaritans did not talk to each other. In John 4:9 we read that “then the woman of Samaria said to Him, ‘How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria?’ For the Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Yet when all the city’s Samaritan men came out to Jesus, He saw them as a whole field ready for harvest! Once simple message we can take from this is that if we are seeking the lost, we do not go to a church to find them, we go to the places where Satan rules. Going to an upper-class suburban neighbourhood in search of souls to save will glean a poor harvest; going to red-light district of the inner city will gather in a bountiful harvest.

Thirdly, we can have a greater harvest among those who do not believe us, than among those who do.

Fourthly, as it was on that day at the well, so it is today. The words of the song say it well:

These are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white in the world,
And we are the labourers in the vineyard,
Declaring the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Yes, the fields in this world are indeed all white and ready for harvest. Commission me now Lord, as one of Your labourers, for Your harvest.
In the mighty name of Jesus I pray, Amen!