And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Mark 4:26-29 (ESV)
Most of Jesus’ parables describe some aspect of the kingdom of God. And this one does as well, although it can be a bit confusing. Like several of Jesus’ other parables, this one involves a farmer, the seed he sows, and how it grows. But it has its own unique message.
Planting seeds into the ground is something I have done for most of my life. It involves taking what appears to be a lifeless speck of something and putting it into the ground. And, if the conditions are right, it will come to life and begin to grow, eventually producing a flower or vegetable.
How it does that is mostly known to science now, but it is a mystery to me. What causes that lifeless seed to come to life, to send roots down and stems upward? How does it convert sunlight into energy and draw moisture and nutrients from the soil? And, if allowed to continue, to produce more seeds that can replicate the process.
The kingdom of God bears some similarity to this. How does the gospel take root in individual hearts, grow, and produce fruit? And how does the kingdom as a whole spread throughout the world and endure all that it has, both within and without, for the past two thousand years?
The simple answer to that is the Holy Spirit. How the Spirit works within the individual life and within the church is a mystery. But we know he does, and we trust that he is bringing us to the harvest that is to come. Despite what it sometimes appears, the kingdom of God is growing and producing the fruit God desires.
