Advent – Luke Chapter 13

This is part of a series exploring Luke’s Gospel for the Advent season. One chapter a day for the first 24 days of December. (We’ll see how we go!) I hope you enjoy :)

- Jeff

I only just realised that the story of the tree that doesn’t bear fruit in Luke 13:6-10 doesn’t have the end I thought it did. In fact, it sort of doesn’t have an end at all. We’re left hanging, a bit like unpicked fruit.

I wonder how many times in your life you have had a project or a ministry that didn’t seem to be going well, and maybe to others there wasn’t a clear end in sight, but you decided to keep going with it anyway. Maybe you’re still going on with that project now. No fruit is yet visible. It could be more than a project – it could be a person.

Hang in there. It could be that the best is yet to come, and you don’t want to miss out.

In Ecclesiastes 11, the writer says to cast out your bread on the water, and that it might return to you after many days. They go on to encourage generosity, because we don’t know when famine will be. To put it another way, often we don’t see the results of what we plant or sow for a long time, maybe not at all in this lifetime: it could be a long time before we reap, but do we want to miss out on the opportunity to be a blessing by holding back?

Don’t give up just yet, unless you hear clearly from the Lord to so. Wait, and pray into it; dig down a little further for a little longer. The fruit that comes may surprise you when it does.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

(Psalm 126:5, KJV)