A Fully Ripe Harvest

“Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe,” ( Revelation 14: 14-19). Many of the liturgical readings at this time of year focus on the end time, whether that means the end of this world as we know it or the end of our personal existence as we know it.  This week a close friend of the family died. This person, for years, wanted to die and each year she would announce to us: “I won’t be around next year.”  We’d say to her” “You know, the day of your death is not yours to choose. God chooses that day for you.”   When each of us is “fully ripe,” I believe, that is the day that we leave this world.  And only God knows that moment! And what a mystery! My identical twin died at age 2 ½, one of my brothers at age 18, my mother at age 50, my father at age 67.Is it true, I wonder, that each of them was “fully ripe” for eternal life? I believe so or, at least, I hope so. My faith tells me that no death is an accident.  No, it is a design of God’s grace: He has a place prepared for us and it is time for that person to be given the inheritance God gained for him or her through Christ Jesus.  When God uses the “sickle” to “reap the harvest” for me to enter into the Kingdom where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more heartache, no  more war, no more injustices or inequities, I hope I am ready.  What about you?