David Williams
Winchester
Jesus drew great crowds, but most of them melted away when he started teaching hard truth. The religious leaders, that you would think would be most open to God, are those that had him crucified. His disciples deserted him, his family questioned him, the Romans washed their hands of him and furnished the cross, and the whole crowd taunted him.
You would think he’d be wondering as he looked from the cross, did any of the seed really take? Was any of it worth doing? Is there ever going to be any growth from all this? Was it all just wasted?
But on the cross, there’s a thief on one side that mocks him. “Why don’t you save yourself and save us?” On the other side, another criminal, a wasted life, but he rebukes the first, and turns to Jesus and says, “Would you remember me?”
On the final day of his life, in the final hours of his existence, with some of the last breath he would ever draw on this earth, Jesus thinks to himself, maybe this is good soil, and he throws one more seed.
With some of his last breaths and last words, the sower who is so lavishly extravagant, flings down one more seed and then he dies. But, of course, he didn’t stay dead, because the tomb could not hold his life any more than soil can keep the life of a seed underground.
Jesus understood all about this, he told his friends, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat, sterile and barren. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
And the fruit is still growing, and the harvest isn’t over yet, so don’t you get discouraged because the sower’s at work; He is at work in your extravagant generosity.