The first fruit in our home garden this year was a handful of cherries. Picked newly ripe, rain washed and ready for eating, they reminded us of a centuries-old celebration.
The offering of the first fruits in old Israel symbolized the awakening from the death of winter to a new life and a new harvest. For centuries, on the first day of the week, just once a year, the wave sheaf, or first fruits, of the harvest was offered to the Lord.
It was a prophecy of the resurrection. Eternity was yet to be ratified because if Christ did not die there was no tomorrow. Death was the end. Only by Christ’s death was death abolished and eternal life made available.
The whole world had been in a long, cold winter and then Christ came forth from death on the first day of the week, the ‘first fruits of the harvest of the dead’ 1st Corinthians 15:20 but the prophecy was not yet complete.
In old Israel, there was another prophetic celebration fifty days later. It was the celebration of the completed harvest when the barns were full of new grain and the pantries of Israel were full of food. How would the resurrected Christ fulfill the ancient prophecy? On the fiftieth day, the disciples gathered together in anticipation
The air was sizzling with anticipation in the Temple. The priests were nervous, the Romans kept wary watch on the international crowds. The world paused.
Where the disciples were gathered, the air stirred, the breeze came up, there was a mighty, rushing wind and red tongues of fire buzzed the crowd, Acts 2.
‘The mighty Paraclete, the Holy Spirit had come. The Holy Spirit came to ‘prove the world wrong about sin, justice and judgment: about sin, because they refuse to believe in me; about justice, because I go the Father when I pass from your sight; about judgment, because the prince of this world stands condemned,’ John 16:8,9.
He harvested the world, lighting upon devout people of every nation and drawing together the scattered nations of the Tower of Babel. Every man heard in his own language that division was gone, death was denied its victory and eternal life was ratified.
Christ fulfilled the ancient prophecy.
Isn’t it marvelous that eternity is embedded in a handful of cherries?
Elizabeth Price