I. Notice the significance of the emblem here employed. Husbandry is the oldest, simplest, and most heaven-ordained labour of man. It keeps man in his place as a servant, and exercises patience, obedience, and faith. (1) It is a work of homely, wholesome, patient labour. A man can only get from the soil in the proportion in which he puts into it. (2) Submission. God has made a law, "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread." God makes man work in submission to His laws for his daily sustenance. (3) Faith. All husbandry is of faith. The seed is trusted to the bosom of nature. Man mustcast the care of it on Him who bears the burden of nature, gives security for all her deposits, and is the Trustee of her every hope.
II. The tearful sowing. Is there a needs-must-be for this, and out of what conditions does it spring? (1) Consider the nature of the seed we sow precious seed, seed which has cost us much, has cost Christ much, how precious is known only to ourselves and God. The seed we sow in human hearts is just the life-bread of our own souls. We sow in tears, because of the preciousness of the seed we are sowing, every grain of it a trophy and the memorial of a pain. (2) The conditions of the field which we cultivate. Every soul is a veiled sanctuary, a shrine impenetrable, to every other soul. No will of ours can lift the curtain, or break the silence, or search the hidden depths. (3) The seed we sow on human hearts, like seed sown on the waters, vanishes from sight and touch; precious as it was, it is gone from us: our effort can help it no more. We have committed it to One who can watch it, but "whose ways are not as our ways, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts." (4) The most precious culture is that which we bestow on the seed-field of our own spirits, and every seed that is planted must be wet with tears ere it germinates there.
III. The joyful reaping. The compensation for the sowing rests on these facts: (1) Every word and work that comes forth from us, born of the inward life, has not only our life, but God's life, in it, a portion of the life which is eternal in it; it cannot, it shall not, die. (2) God establishes this law of tearful sowing just that He may lead us to this fruitful and victorious union with Himself. (3) We are not isolated in this work. We belong to an advancing army; we fight in a field of victory; we serve a Master who must push His triumphs until He has fulfilled the largest purpose of His love. (4) We thus realise the full communion with the Saviour; and that is the highest joy of a spirit "the joy which the world giveth not and taketh not away."
J. Baldwin Brown, Aids to the Development of the Divine Life,No. 2.
I. The first lesson suggested to us here is that we are often called to labour in which we have little joy.
II. The second lesson is that God rewards us according to our fidelity, and not according to our gladness.
III. Our text speaks not only of sheaves for the sowing, but of rejoicing for the tears. The very tears are a seed that shall have a joyful springing; the sorrow shall return again in joy.
A. Mackennal, Christ's Healing Touch,p. 30.
Reference: Psalms 126:5; Psalms 126:6. Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iii., p. 167.