Faith and Hope Drive Spring Planting

When Spring arrives, farming communities get to work!  While some planners dream of a speedy shift to renewable energy in the form of wind and solar, farmers are busy starting up millions of creation's oldest and tried and true "solar collectors."  They call them crop plants, and they come with names like wheat, corn, soybean, and rice. 

Many farmers welcome planting season with a tradition of deep and abiding faith.  That’s right.  Faith that once again God will provide good weather conditions for a good growing season and harvest.  Their faith also rests  upon the amazing physiology of dry, lifeless seeds—a faith so great that farmers risk losing a large investment in time and money every time they mechanically plant seeds by the millions in agricultural fields.  For example, farmers plant or sow seeds of corn, soybean, and other crops by mechanically placing into the proper depth and density within rows of specified width.  But even with such highly developed agricultural technology, the farmer still must exercise great faith.

Speaking of faith, many of us are remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during this Passion Week. In light of this sacred week, let us consider how the activities of planting season on the farm are reminders of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. 

First, the farmer prepares the soil to receive the seed, then buries the seemingly lifeless seeds within the darkness of the ground.  Finally, he waits for the physiological processes within each seed to unfold in response to its physical environment leading to germination, and a “resurrection” of “new life” from the dark soil.  Let us consider how each of these phases of the farmer’s work draws him into partnership with the enduring order of God’s creation and His sacrificial death to redeem man and creation from its corruption.
 
He Creates Deep Furrows
Preparation of the soil for planting has rich biblical significance.  From Genesis 2: 15 we learn that God took Adam and placed him in the Garden to till (serve) and keep (preserve) it.  The farmer who practices good stewardship of the land will realize that clearing the land and working the soil is a forceful, transforming action.  Tilling the soil has the potential for either sustaining its life-supporting nutrients and microbial community or allowing it to erode and become depleted.

Plowing and making furrows in the sod is a violent, ripping and shearing process that the Bible compares to the brutal treatment given to slaves and criminals.  The psalmist wrote,
The plowers plowed upon my back:
 they made long their furrows (Psalm 129: 3).
 
The prophet Isaiah, 500 years before Christ, described the beatings Jesus would endure when brought before Pilate, the Roman governor: 
I offered my back to those who beat me,
 my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting (Isaiah 50: 6).

Later, Isaiah elaborated on how the brutal treatment of Jesus had affected His appearance:
Just as many were astonished at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred more than any man
And His form more than the sons of men.
Thus He will sprinkle many nations… (Isaiah 52: 14-15a).

Just as the ripping of the plow cuts furrows in the soil before a beautiful and bountiful harvest is realized, so the furrows and gashes produced in the body of the Lamb of God was necessary for Him to “sprinkle many nations” with the sacrifice of His Life-giving blood.  All of this came for our good as a Gift of the kindness and grace of God.

Romans 2:4 warns us not to think lightly of the riches of God’s kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. By His grace, God offers salvation just as also He offers year after year His blessings upon the farmland.  Again, the psalmist offers praise to his Creator for His care of the Earth:

You take care of the earth and water it,
making it rich and fertile.
The river of God has plenty of water;
 it provides a bountiful harvest of grain,
for You have ordered it so.
You drench the plowed ground with rain,
melting the clods and leveling the ridges.
You soften the earth with showers
and bless its abundant crops (Psalm 65: 9-10).

Having grown up on a farm, I had the blessing (though not always appreciated at the time) of helping to prepare the soil by plowing, disking, and harrowing, and then planting the seed.  I now realize from the study of science and from the Scriptures how much the farmer depends on God to water the Earth.  God sends rain in order to ”melt the clods and level the ridges.”  He created microbes and a host of other soil dwelling creatures whose nourishment leads to decomposition of dead organic matter while maintaining soil fertility through nutrient recycling.  Thus, farming is truly an example of the “Divine-Human Cooperative” in which farmers serve as good steward-caretakers of the soil and water.  Agriculture flourishes when farmers conduct their practices in accordance with the Divine design made evident to them through the created order and the Scriptures (See Isaiah 28: 23-29 and text box on right).

His Lifeless Body is Wrapped for Burial

After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission.  So, he came and took away His body.  Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight.  So, they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews (John 19: 38-40).

Since our father Adam was charged with serving and conserving the Garden, farmers and gardeners have continually practiced the ritual of burying dry, seemingly lifeless seeds in the ground in faith that new life will sprout and emerge in due time.  But even before a seed comes into being, much surprising seed physiology must occur to form the seed within the parent plant.  [Click on image below to enlarge.]  

Seeds will not form unless pollination and fertilization occur.  Pollination, the transfer of pollen from male to female parts of flowers, is aided by wind, or by animals—i.e. insect, bird, or mammalian pollinators.  Fertilization occurs when sperm from within each pollen grain are carried through a pollen tube into the female ovary and egg sac to form a zygote and to initiate accumulation of starches, proteins, lipids, and nutrients as food for the embryo.  A seed consists of an embryo and a food supply. 

But a fresh juicy seed would decay if were released from the fruit (enlarged ovary) too early.  So, the embryo plus its food supply is wrapped with a seed coat to protect it from predation and decay.  Finally, most seeds undergo desiccation, the removal of water, while still attached to the parent plant.  Desiccation prevents predation and decay, and delays germination by allowing a period of dormancy until the time when the seed is released from the parent plant. 

We marvel at the process of human development in which a baby forms within the mother.  It is not too much less marvelous to consider the complex processes whereby the parent plant forms seeds, each with a tiny embryo and a food supply. Then, each seed is allowed to desiccate, or become a dried up, hardened, seemingly lifeless form.  But we should note that this desiccation phase does not occur because the lifeline for each seed was “pulled.”  On the contrary, desiccation is precisely regulated by means of downregulation of some genes and upregulation of others.  Even during the period of seed dormancy (from Fr. dormir = sleep), physiological processes continue—e.g. some seeds slowly degrade inhibitors that prevent germination until conditions are suitable.

They Are Buried in the Ground
We should realize that when seeds dry up and shrivel up, they are not on an uncontrolled path to death.  It is also a mistake to believe that the fake trial, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ was beyond His control.  Instead, according to the Bible, Jesus was in complete control.  He was not captured against His will and murdered.  Instead, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was preordained by complete obedience to His Father's will from the beginning of time (Ephesians 1: 3-4).  His sacrifice for our sin was first predicted right after the Fall of Man in the Garden Genesis 3: 14-15).

During Jesus’s ministry on Earth, He predicted his death several times as witnessed in the accounts in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke as follows:
(1)  After feeding the multitudes:  
       Matthew 16:21–23, Mark 8:31–32, Luke 9:21–22
(2)  After His transfiguration: 
       Matthew 17:22–23, Mark 9:30–32, Luke 9:43–45
(3)  Approaching Jerusalem near His death: 
       Matt. 20:17–19, Mark 10:32–34, Luke 18:31–34
The Gospel of John records Jesus’s foretelling of His death numerous times:
       John 12: 3-8, John 13: 33, John 14: 25,  John 14: 29

The "Good Shepherd," Jesus Christ, willingly gave His life as the sacrificial Lamb.  John 10 records Jesus saying,
… I am the Good Shepherd (v. 11). 
…I lay down My life for the sheep (v. 15).
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down
of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.  This command I received from my Father (v. 18).

Jesus likened Himself to Jonah and predicted that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12: 40).  Just as the farmer plants with the purpose of realizing a bountiful harvest, so also Christ …died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit (1 Peter 3: 18).

So, they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.  Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.  Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there (John 19: 40-42).

Up from the Grave He Arose!
What would you think if you knew nothing about seeds, the soil, or farming?  And what if you saw a man driving a tractor equipped with a 12-row planter across a bare field without a single green plant in sight?  Then, after four days and an April shower, what if you returned and saw the field turning green with millions of tiny shoots of corn, all in neat rows?  Wouldn’t you think the farmer had worked a miracle?

Soon, you decide to study agriculture and soil and seeds, and you learn that a green field is not a “miracle” at all.  It happens each growing season, and has done so since the beginning of human history.  Still, you wonder how a farmer can bury millions of seeds in the ground in every possible orientation and, somehow each will produce a green shoot and a brown root.  What's more, each shoot (leaves and stem) knows which way is up and each root, which way is down.  

You also observe more closely the “resurrection” of tender new seedlings from the ground.  The first leaves of corn emerge from the ground with a protective sheath, or coleoptile; whereas, bean seedlings emerge from the ground with the soil-clearing force of the “hypocotyl hook.”  When red light is absorbed by the “hook,” it straightens out and the tender shoots orient themselves to expose newly expanding leaves.

Upon close observation, you are tempted once again to say “miracle.”  However, botany tells us that it is simply the result of water, light, living cells, genes, enzymes, good soil, and good farming.  But where did all of these come from?  Who made the living cells, enzymes, and genes?  In fact, which came first, the corn plant or the corn seed?   Maybe there is “miracle” and Divine Design here after all.  We don’t really understand HOW seeds do what they do—we can only describe WHAT seeds do.  For all of this, the farmer truly exercises faith during planting season:  He does his part, but realizes (or ought to realize) that he is simply a steward whose success depends upon operating within the created order established by God.

We Are Invited into Death and Resurrection
What would you think if you met a man who claimed to be sent from God?  He spoke words of compassion, hope, and healing.  In fact, he healed the sick with power he claimed to originate from God, and claimed God to be his Father.  He predicted that he would be killed, and after three days, he would arise from the dead.  Then, what if he actually was killed?  (Slain for no apparent reason except that he claimed to be from God, God in the flesh.)  And what if each of his predictions, including his resurrection from the dead on the third day, actually happened?

Would you call this man just another great teacher, maybe the greatest teacher that ever lived? Would you go on living as if nothing had happened, and then dismiss the witness of others about him as mere fabrications?  How would you reconcile with his claim, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me (John 14: 6)?”  What if, instead of believing his claim of being the only way to Heaven, you simply believed him to be a good teacher?  But then, how could this man called Jesus be a good and trustworthy teacher if His claim of being God was a lie? 

After extensive efforts to prove that God does not exist, former atheist C.S. Lewis wrote,
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse….”

What can we learn about Jesus from his followers, all of whom had betrayed Him and fled in terror?  (Maybe they had concluded that He was a fraud.)  After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus returned to His followers with gentleness and love (John 21).  He served breakfast and ate with them, allowed them to see and touch the scars from his suffering and death, and then gave them a “Great Commission” to tell others all that had happened because of his undying love for the world (Matthew 28: 18-20; Acts 1: 8).  In response, Jesus’s followers became emboldened witnesses of their resurrected leader to the extent that all but one was martyred for their faith.  By that time, the message of his love and forgiveness had spread throughout much of the known world. 

Resurrection to a New Life
As we observe the amazing “resurrection” of green shoots from the ground, and as we celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ this week, we hope that you have personally come to know Jesus and His gift of salvation. 

Personally, Abby and I are celebrating the “New Birth” of J.G.  On Monday evening on the balcony of her aunt M.L, this woman confessed that she is a sinner and asked Jesus to become her Savior.  Thanks to God’s rich grace, her aunt’s godly testimony, the preaching of the Gospel by our pastor, Zach Swift, and the prayers of many, J.G. is now one more grateful follower of Jesus.

If you have particular comments or questions, please use the “Comment” link below, or write privately to us at silviusj@gmail.com.  You may also wish to read “Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-filled Life?” by clicking HERE.