Dead Seeds

At the end of His life, Jesus told His disciples,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

He was, of course, not talking gardening rules. He was talking about Himself. He was on the verge of the cross and knew that His death was necessary for an immensely greater "fruit."

Nonetheless, there is more here than meets the eye, so to speak. Jesus was definitely speaking of His own death, but there is truth there for all of us. Think about that "seed" process. Does the seed die? Well, no, maybe not in a literal sense ... because the seed wasn't alive. But think about the process. It falls to the ground and gets covered. The outer coating has to fall away and the center (they actually call it the embryo) is left. There it rends itself apart, sprouting parts like roots and stems and leaves. When done, the seed itself isn't visible anymore. It is something else. That may not be literal death, but it certainly looks like it.

Paul said, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:3-4). He said, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal 2:20). He talked about "in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ" (Col 2:11) and went on to say, "having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead" (Col 2:12). Perhaps you can see a theme here.

Jesus came to give us an abundant life (John 10:10), but not the same kind of life as we now see. His was from death. His involved denying self and taking up a cross (Matt 16:24). Like those seeds, we need to shed the outer shell -- the flesh -- accomplished by Christ. We need to die to self and manifest something new (2 Cor 5:17). Jesus said, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matt 16:25). It doesn't happen by clinging to this life; it happens ... by dying to it.