The seed isn’t hidden except to be revealed

Posted byjonmkiwiPosted inUncategorized

If Mark 4 is a familiar chapter for you, you should be doing a double take at my title above; or saying, poor old bloke, his memory is starting to go. I’m clearly getting the Parable of the Sower, which ends with verse 20, mixed up with the saying about the lamp, which begins at verse 21.

Or does it? As I have mentioned a time or two already, the section titles (and chapter breaks, and even verse divisions) can deceive us into seeing beginnings and endings that aren’t actually there. As I look at these verses in my (unadorned) Greek version, verses 21 to 23 look like a summary reflection on Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Sower. Here’s why.

As I suggested in the Seeing the Kingdom book, when you receive a word about, say, healing and let it lodge in the soil of your heart, so that it grows up into a fully mature plant there, that is you receiving your healing. But then that plant produces fruit, 30- 60- or 100-fold; and that is other people receiving their healing because they see what happened for you. (Specifically, how a word from God received into your heart and kept there produced healing for you.)

So what is the saying about the lamp? Jesus is simply enlarging on this theme. The seed that you receive was never just about you; it was always so that your blessing could be multiplied to others. Who would bring a lamp into a room to hide it under the bucket? And who would hide a seed in the ground so that it would never be seen again. Actually you hide a seed in the ground so that something much bigger may appear, which in time will carry a whole number of seeds identical to the original one. If you are struggling with the idea, just think of the wheat plant as a green menorah, a lamp stand for multiplied seeds.

“To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom;” yes but: the intention was never to keep it a secret forever. Whatever has been hidden is only so that it can be made manifest. There is a time for secrecy; but it comes to an end.

So for the disciples, as for us, there is a time to keep the word hidden while it works in us. But when it has done its work and brought change, it is lamp stand time!

Published by jonmkiwi

Jon Mason was born and raised in New Zealand, has Masters degrees in Theology (Cambridge) and Business (NTU Australia), and runs an international business helping people to understand themselves better (with programmes for both large business / government organisations, and for young people) with his wife, Sarah. They are living on a farm in NZ for the foreseeable future, but continue to work globally, thanks to the wonders of the InterWeb.

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