Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. – John 12:24
Twice yesterday from very different sources this metaphor
came up. I decided I should probably
consider it.
A seed typically has the actual germ surrounded by something
that protects, feeds, and sustains it.
The germ is transformed into the new plant, while the seed coat provides
the initial nourishment that allows the sprout to break through into the
light. In the process, the body of the
seed is consumed. Without the dying and
decay of the seed body, there will be no new life, no growth, no bloom, no
fruit, no harvest.
There are wealthy individuals today funding research they
hope will extend their lives and perhaps even grant them immortality. I find this sort of desperation poignantly amusing. Observe an elderly person in good health,
especially one in good spiritual health, and you will catch a glimpse of
immortality. Like a bean from which the
germ has sprouted, the body of such a person is diminishing, but something
about that one is stretching up toward the light of heaven.
A sower went out to sow
… the
kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter wheat on the ground …
God planted a garden.
Imagine that a grain of barley became self-aware. What would that seed think of being buried,
of having clods thrown upon his head, of the darkness in which he lay, of the
rains violating him and breaking open his body?
Would not our little barley seed (shall we call him John?) think himself
sorely tried and troubled? Would he not
possibly suffer great fear and anguish entombed in his dark dungeon? Would he not rejoice when he saw, at last,
his destiny?
