Thursday after the Seventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 27, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. Mark 4:26-29 (NKJV)
4:26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, 27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain ripens, immediately she puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Devotion
Driving through various parts of the country during the spring and summer, it’s interesting to compare the various stages in which we find crops—or even gardens—growing. It is easiest to see the differences driving north and south, of course, where we know the growing season is going to have different lengths, but the differences driving east and west can be significant, and sometimes puzzling, as well. Was there a late freeze in one place, or too much rain to plant at the normal time, or has one place received more precipitation, or less, since then? Was it, maybe, a difference in the brand of seed or of fertilizer? Even with all our advances in agricultural science, there’s often no clear answer.
That’s how life is in your faithful congregation, too. You know the good seed of God’s Word is being sown from the pulpit and at the altar; you know it’s being fertilized at home, too, by your reading the Word and the Small Catechism and your singing of the hymns. But sometimes you wonder why one family’s ‘plants’ seem taller than another’s, or why one parish expands while another recedes. These words of Jesus are a comfort at such times, as He reminds us that His Word will always produce its crop. We simply continue in the sowing, and the Holy Spirit will continue to create faith where and when He pleases (Augsburg Confession, Article V).
Prayer: O God, Whose never-failing Providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
