The Laborers are Few: A Meditation on Luke 10

After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also,

and sent them two and two before his face

 into every city and place, whither he himself would come.

Therefore said he unto them,

The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few:

pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,

that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves…

He that heareth you heareth me;

and he that despiseth you despiseth me;

and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.

It is an easy and common mistake, to think that the 12 Disciples (who after Judas’ fall, would become the original 11 Apostles) were the only believers who accompanied Jesus during His earthly ministry.  In Luke 10, we hear of how Jesus appointed (called, ordained, sent) 70 of His followers to go in pairs to each of the towns in the countryside, and prepare them for Jesus’ arrival.  These 70 are often understood to have been with the Apostles at Pentecost, and part of the 120 who waited with them and the women for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The Eastern churches have traditional records and stories of these 70 going on to make an enormous impact in the evangelization of the Mediterranean world, vignettes of which correlate to people we meet in Luke’s book of Acts.

The power and efficacy of their preaching was manifest.  In this short passage, we see how Jesus sent them to preach “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”  When they came into any town, they stayed with one family, and received from them the nourishment and shelter generously provided as they preached the Word of Christ.  They healed the sick, cast out demons, and declared the great Day of the Lord’s salvation to all who would listen.  If they came to a town where no one would receive them or the Word they preached, Jesus told them to shake off the very dust from their feet as a testimony against them—and lamented that it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for the cities which rejected the messengers of Christ.  Town to town they went, and when they returned to Jesus, they rejoiced in the power of His Word, and that He had given them authority even over the demons.  To which Jesus responded about the reality of the devil and his evil angels falling like lightening from heaven, but that while He had delegated to them power over them all, their rejoicing should rather be that their names were written in heaven.

As our contemporary culture shifts its priorities and values away from the things of God, its appreciation for Christ and the ones He sends forth in the power of His Word diminishes.  For people whose gods are technology, science, and politics, there is little room or concern for the Word of the true and saving God.  Such people think themselves autonomous in the universe, as if they had given birth to themselves, gave themselves purpose, and then judge themselves on their own subjective scales of good and evil.  People who put their faith, hope, and trust in gadgets and their inventors, scientific marvels and their discoverers, political parties and their bureaucracies, will find little value in the things of God.  More often than not, the simple and eternal truth of God’s Word becomes an irritant to such people—a light which they refuse more and more to tolerate.  The ears and eyes which are full of the promises of wealth, health, prosperity, and comfort shelled out by the snake-oil salesmen of modernity, are dull or even hostile to God’s message of Law and Gospel, Faith and Repentance, Sin and Grace, Life and Death.  A people hell-bent on saving themselves have little time to consider the fruitless folly of their ill-fated pursuit, and even less for the Truth and Wisdom of God to distill away their delusional insanity.

Even so our Lord tells us, that the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.  While we as fallen creatures cannot see into the hearts of mankind, He can—and He knows who will respond to His Word by faith to receive His grace unto eternal salvation, versus who will reject Him and His Word in unbelief, consigning themselves justly to eternal perdition.  Jesus sees the harvest field for what it truly is, and lays down His own life to seek and to save the lost of every generation.  From a human perspective, bringing faith and repentance to a self absorbed, narcissistic, unhinged culture may seem impossible, but Jesus knows that by His Word all things are possible.  He knows that by His Word, even self absorbed, narcissistic, unhinged people like us have been raised from the death of our sin into faith and repentance, and that He desires all people to be saved in like fashion.  If He can save us, He can save them, too.

But how does Jesus do this great work of evangelizing and saving all who will repent and believe His Gospel, receiving the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation for the sake His life, death, and resurrection?  The same way He did with the 70, the Apostles, and those who followed in their train down through history:  He calls them by His Word, to carry and proclaim His Word into all the world.  This fellowship of faith which He creates by His Word, the Holy Spirit knits together in fellowship with the Father, that we may become His Holy Church.  This One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in every time and place is created by Christ and His Word, sustained by Christ and His Word, sent by Christ and His Word, and saved by Christ and His Word.  In this Church of Christ where His people abide in, through, and by His Word, Christ continues to call and send preachers of His Word in His own power and authority, that the world may repent, believe, and live.  In every time and place, the method and the means are the same:  Jesus by His Word seeks and saves sinners like you and I, and then uses us to bear His Word to other sinners, that they too may live by grace through faith in Him alone.

Like the 70, the Apostles, and all who have born form above by Jesus’ Word and Spirit in the world, we will find that some receive His Word joyfully, some ignore it, and some respond to it with hostility.  Some will repent, believe, and live; some will shrug it off, and go back to their self absorbed, narcissistic, unhinged paths of darkness and hopelessness; some will persecute the preachers of Christ’s Word with demonic hatred, working with all their might to extinguish the Light of Christ which reveals the folly of their ways.  In every case, however, the calling and the work is the same:  to proclaim Christ crucified for the sins of the world, to preach faith and repentance to all who would live by His grace, and in so doing to declare unequivocally that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  It is this same Word of Christ which has called, gathered, sent, and sustained the people of God from the beginning of the world, and it will be that which alone calls, gathers, sends, and sustains His people until His final coming again.  By the Word of Christ, the Holy Spirit will continue to raise dead sinners to eternal life and fellowship with the Father, knitting them together into one people of faith, hope, and love, which He gathers into His Kingdom which has no end.

Where does the Word of Christ encounter you today?  Are you a self absorbed narcissist who thinks there is nothing more to the world than your own futile pursuits of pleasure or avoidance of pain, marking out your meaningless days until death finally chases you down to the grave?  Behold, the Word of Christ comes to you to bring you hope and forgiveness and life, meaning and purpose which death cannot destroy.  Are you one who is breathing hatred and threats against Christ and His Word, hating the Light which reveals the darkness within which you wallow?  Hear Him call to you that you might have life in place of your death, and not be swallowed up in the diabolical darkness forever.  Are you one of the faithful, who looks out upon the growing darkness of the world, upon its continued devolution into suffering and wickedness, and is tempted to wonder if anything can turn back the tide of evil in our day?  Be of good cheer, and remember that the Word of Christ which turned the tide of darkness in your own soul, has power to turn that same tide in every soul in every corner of the globe.  Are you a preacher of this Gospel, a bearer of this Word, called and sent by Christ through His Church to proclaim His Word unto a sick and dying world?  Remember that it is the power and authority of Almighty God which indwells you by His Word; that sickness, death, sin, and the devil all flee before Him and those He has sent in His Name; that you have the power of the Holy Spirit exercised through the gifts He has given you, to reconcile the world to the Father through the shed Blood of the Son; that your work will include not only the joy of seeing those who come to faith and life by the Word you bear, but also the sorrow of seeing those against whom you must shake off the dust of your shoes in testimony against their willful unbelief; that in all this struggle and victory, our rejoicing is not in the power we exercise by Christ over the fallen evils of this world, but rather that our names—with all the saints—are written in heaven.

The harvest indeed is plentiful, and the faithful laborers are few.  Pray the Lord of the Harvest, that He will send faithful laborers into this world to bear His Word, that all who hear it may repent, believe, and live.  For the Lord who sends forth His Word for the salvation of souls is ever closer to His return, and the people must hear before He comes that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Amen.