The First Fruits

"As an offering of first fruits you may bring them to the LORD, but they shall not be offered on the altar for a pleasing odor. " Leviticus 2:12 RSV

God's earthly abundance is tied to seasons; there is seed time and harvest. He promised that if we plant our seed, the harvest will be a hundredfold. However, this hundredfold harvest is so bountiful that it must be harvested in divisions or the fruit may wither on the vine before all has been brought into the storehouse.

The expulsion from the Garden ushered in the winter of desolation. Despite periods of sunshine, there was very little growth, but when Jesus started his ministry the planting season began. Those seeds were germinated in the upper room on Pentecost. It is no coincidence that the Hebrew festival of Shavout (Feast of the First Fruits) was also celebrated on that very day.

The first fruits are planted in the first days of increasing sunshine. Rain is abundant and although a late frost may take out some of the crop, most of the early fruits weather the nighttime temperatures with little trouble. These fruits are usually tender such as lettuce, peas, strawberries - for they have been cultivated in the most ideal conditions. They are cherished because they are the first abundance after the long winter, and so the first harvest is completed.

"Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." ICorinthians 15:51-52 RSV