“…and the seed sprouts up and grows…” Mark 4:26-34
Seeds are one of the marvelous illustrations that Jesus uses in teaching. A seed pretty much works on its own. Whatever makes it tick is already in place even before the sower places it into the ground. What else does the sower do? He waits day after day and night after night for it to grow and ripen. Then he harvests it and enjoys its fruit. He doesn’t even have to understand how it works.
The mustard seed is simply a story that shows how something small can become something large. A small seed that grows into a big bush, so that birds can nest in its branches.
However growing seeds are not the main subject here. Jesus is using these stories to teach us something about the kingdom of God. It’s not about any work that we do or could do. It’s about how God moves steadily and surely toward establishing his kingdom. His kingdom does not follow man’s rules or ideas of how things should be. Men deny that God’s way will work and provide lengthy, involved explanations of how it didn’t work when it is quite evident that it has.
Do we realize the power that we unleash when even the smallest seed is planted? Or the bountiful crop of fruit that results? To us, life goes on a day and a night at a time while God produces growth in these tiny seeds. Most of the time everything looks the same – nothing appears to change. But eventually we notice the blade has emerged from the ground and before we know it, it’s a huge shrub. In time, we can hardly imagine when it was not there.
Remember to keep spreading those seeds around. What seeds? The seed that is the word of God.
Copyright 2019 David J. Cooley
