John 12:24  I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Anyone who likes to garden or comes from an agricultural background understands this image. It is always amazing to think that something so lifeless as a seed - dried up, hard, dead - can, with God's help, grow into a vibrant, green, living plant.

Jesus here is describing what must happen to Him for life to blossom. He was to become dead. Alive, during His ministry on earth, He had many followers. They flocked to Him, witnessed miracles, and listened to His teaching. Yet while still alive, He was abandoned by all but a few of His followers, and He died nearly alone.

But in that death, and the glorious resurrection that followed, the seeds of His ministry, by all appearances dead, were brought to life in faith and grew to a vibrant, living church.

I often start my garden with seeds. This gives me a good opportunity to watch the change in the lifeless seeds. And they give me a good lesson in faith. Some never grow. But some, and often the hardiest of the bunch, grow and come out of the soul with the husk of the seed attached to a leaf or a stem. They grow well and are alive and vibrant, but there is a reminder of their death that grows with them.

We, too, grow with a reminder of our death. We have died, but we have been reborn. In our Baptism, and with the seeds of faith that Christ has planted in us, we live and grow in Him. Yet we remember our death. Not only our death in Christ, which He accomplished for us, but our death to sin. And in that death, there is life - everlasting life in Christ.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Rev. Dr. Brent L Parrish