Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jesus.
Jesus is in his last week. He knows what’s happening. His friends? Well, they have no clue. John, writing maybe 50 years later, acknowledges that they didn’t comprehend until later the significance of the words and the events.
Here Jesus is predicting his death. He is also stating a truth. If we stay within ourselves, self-contained as individuals, then we remain just a single grain. If we die to our ego-bound individuality, then we can live a new life with Jesus and bear much fruit.
How many times have you looked at someone and thought, “Wow, so much potential. All lost down the drain. They are just so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t realize what they could be.”
It happens to organizations, too.
I saw an old friend today. We were talking about churches. About how some churches just cannot see beyond their own doors. They spend their money on themselves–their buildings, salaries, offices. Mission giving? Well, that’s on the back burner. Maybe if we get a surplus of money we’ll spend some of it.
She called it, “Eating your own harvest.”
I thought, how appropriate given the verse that I’ve been meditating on. What little harvest we do receive, we consume ourselves instead of planting to reap a larger harvest.
As for Jesus, his single grain died and he put forth a mighty harvest. No other single person in the history of the world has had such an impact.
Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 