# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 45

means: in my kingdom sowing and harvest go together; there stand side by side at work both he who sows and at the same time he who reaps. Therefore he adds: "That sower and reaper may rejoice together."

The Savior speaks these words at Jacob's well in the wonderful conversation with the Samaritan woman. He testifies to her that he is the promised Messiah, expected also by them, who brings salvation to the Jews, and not only to the Jews, but also to them, the Samaritans, yes, to all the heathen on earth. And behold, as he speaks, the seed of his Word falls into the heart of the Samaritan woman and brings the fruit of faith. She is the first sheaf in the heavenly harvest from the Samaritan people. And she goes and sows the seed of this Word in the hearts of her compatriots, and these come and hear the heavenly Sower himself and believe and rejoice that they have come to faith in the Lord Jesus, and ask him to stay with them. And Jesus grants them two days of the grace of his presence. Sowing and harvest were thus together. The joy of sowing and harvest was before the eyes of the dear apostles. They saw it now with their eyes, the field was white and ripe for harvest.

But this was only a slight foretaste of what the Savior foretold with his words of the near future. Before his eyes stood what was to be fulfilled in a little while, namely the bloody sowing of his death on Golgotha and his exaltation to the throne of the divine majesty for the redemption of the sinful world. Pentecost, with the fiery tongues of the Holy Spirit over the apostles, proclaimed to the world the preaching of Christ's death and resurrection as the divine seed unto eternal life, which, sown on the field of the world and as a heavenly harvest, leads immortal souls, cleansed and sanctified with the divine blood of their Savior, to blessed eternity. The Savior already beholds the blessed fruit of this preaching, the three thousand souls whom the first proclamation of him, the Savior of sinners, wins. He beholds the salvation coming from Jerusalem to the Samaritans, to their conversion. Then the gathering-in of the first sheaves of the heathen in the house of Cornelius at Caesarea. Therefore he says: "It is already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together."

This most blessed sowing and harvest through the seed of the Gospel of Christ Jesus has gone on from that moment through almost two thousand years. We heathen by nature, strangers and far from the promises, have through God's infinite grace become good, spiritual farmland out of the thorn-field of the world, certain in the hope that one day, as sheaves of his harvest, we shall receive a joyful welcome into the barns of the blessed