the seed that fell into the earth

The seed that fell into the earth

An ecological understanding of the work of Christ 

For several years now I have been seeking a new way of understanding what Christ achieved through his death and resurrection. I am deeply aware that Christian proclamation as it stands today is almost entirely human-centred. We are told that Christ came to offer us forgiveness, that he died in our place, that our calling is to join this human community and live a life of sharing the good news. This is all very well but I have come to see that it is very ‘thin’. It is not so much wrong as inadequate, because it fails to make any significant connections with the creation or with what it means to live well outside of ‘church’.

I want to try to put forward a constructive suggestion that might at least lie alongside the current understandings. It concerns ‘the seed that fell into the earth’. I would also invite you to read what follows in a particular way. ‘Theories of the atonement’ as they have become known, are often investigated as tight, logical exercises using scripture as a sort of theoretical resource. I don’t believe the Bible was meant to be read in that way. In ‘Introducing Shalom’ I suggest that much of the scriptural understanding of God actually arose from meditation on the natural world. Here I invite you to consider the work of Christ in a prayerful/meditative fashion. The images and metaphors I will introduce will not be reducible to a simple ‘this is that’ type of thinking, but are intended, I believe, to be evocative, drawing us into prayer and meditation. Likewise they will not result in a metaphysical understanding, or theory in the realm of spirit, but may rather ‘go off’ inside us and transform us from within.  That is my hope.

Tom Wright has inspired me to try to get inside Jesus’ mind. Many would have said in the past that this was a hopeless task, but Tom Wright in ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ suggests that Jesus clearly saw himself as in the line of the prophets of the Old Testament and there is no doubt then that he would have known those ancient writings and that they would have formed something of his own self-understanding. In ‘Introducing Shalom’ I speculate on how Jesus might have responded to those extraordinary verses in Isaiah 52 which tell of one who would come to announce ‘good news’ proclaiming ‘peace’ and the time when ‘your God reigns’ and I suggested that in Jesus’ mind the great peace or Shalom was the good news and was at least part of what was meant by the ‘Kingdom of God’. Here I would like to begin with another seminal passage from Isaiah that I sense was known to Jesus of Nazareth and those gospel writers who first tried to understand the meaning of his life.  It is Isaiah 40, an extraordinary passage where the writer, known as Second Isaiah, is introducing the theme of his work. It is the announcement of a global event that will give hope to the people. The writer proclaims forgiveness (‘Comfort, comfort my people’) and then tells us‘

A voice cries:In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,Make straight in the desert a highway for our GodEvery valley shall be lifted up…. …And the glory of the Lord shall be revealedAnd all flesh shall see it together For the mouth of the Lord has spoken

It is a truly global vision of God’s work. The writer tells us that ‘all flesh’ shall see it and that means not just people, but the whole created order will witness this thing. Those familiar with the gospels will know how these verses about the wilderness were used to describe the ministry of John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ and the overall event is likewise a telling of the work of Christ. So it goes on to speak of one who will come as God

Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God’

And speaks winsomely of this one who will

feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young

It is not hard to see how the one who described himself as ‘the good shepherd’, and those who meditated on his life, were clearly deeply familiar with this passage and saw it as a primary source of understanding for Jesus’ life work. So if that is true we need to recognise that this whole passage is creation centred. The life’s work of Jesus was set in the context of the whole creation. So for example, verses 12 and following exhort the reader to wonder at the majesty of God the creator.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked of the heavens with a span…All the nations are as nothing before him…Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers…(God) makes rules of the earth as nothing,

And it uses interesting language about the life of people on earth

Scarcely are they planted scarcely sown,Scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, When he blows upon them and they wither…

This language about human life in terms of seed sown is, I am going to suggest,  foundational to any proper account of the work of Christ. There is one particular passage that I believe may have been a rich source of meditation for the writers of the New Testament and even for Jesus himself. It is this

All flesh is grass And all its beauty like the flower of the field.The grass withers and the flower fallsWhen the breath of the Lord falls upon it.Surely the people is grass.The grass withers and the flower fades; But the word of our God will stand for ever. (Isaiah 40 v 6-8)

So in Isaiah we have the picture of the fragility of all life, or all ‘flesh’. The natural cycle of birth, decay and death is figured in terms of the seed of a flower and it is contrasted with a mysterious ‘word of God’ that will stand for ever.Jesus similarly played with the idea of the seed sown and the word of God, most notably in  the parable of the sower. This story is presented as the all embracing parable about parables, the story that summarised Jesus life’s work. And it was couched in terms of ‘a sower who went out to sow’ and one whose seeds were ‘the word’. A more explicit link with Isaiah would be hard to imagine.  Jesus’ work was, like the prophets before him, a deliberate sowing of seed. He was aware, quoting Isaiah 6, that many people would not be able to hear ‘the word’ but he must say it anyway. (Mark 4 v 12) And there was hope that those who did receive the word would respond and bear abundant fruit.

Jesus stories were actually full of this word picture. Some have simply put this down to his contact with and love for the natural world, but I suggest it might be more than this. I suggest that the idea of ‘the seed that fell into the earth’ was a primary source of understanding of the work of Christ both by the person of Jesus himself and by those who tried to understand the meaning of his life later. Other examples include the parable of the mustard seed, ‘the smallest of all seeds’ but which later can become ‘the greatest of all shrubs’. There are likewise several variations on the sowing, growing and harvest themes. These are all familiar to us.

John’s gospel has a different feel from the others and the set of metaphors and illustrations attributed to Jesus are also distinctive. For example, these two ideas of ‘the seed’ and ‘the word’ are not directly associated with one another in John, but both are developed in a new and fascinating direction. So for example Jesus’ words in John directly link the seed falling into the earth with his coming death and resurrection.  This is his description of his life’s work.

Unless a grain of seed fall into the ground and die it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. (John 12 v 24)

Likewise ‘the word’ is powerfully expounded in the prologue to the gospel and make it clear that we are to see this act of Christ as like no ordinary sowing of seed.  This one was divine and implicated in the very act of creation.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

And it goes on

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…

The origins of this idea are complex. They certainly lean heavily on the Old Testament idea of ‘the word’ as in Isaiah, but it has now been personalised, as for example in Proverbs 8, and associated with the very act of creation. The reference in Proverbs speaks of a personified and feminine wisdom of God, who was ‘beside God, like a skilled worker’ and ‘daily his delight’ in the process of creation. [1] 

So we see in John that both ‘the seed’ and ‘the word’ become all embracing metaphors for the work of Christ and that this work clearly involves the whole creation.So to summarise what I am saying so far, I believe that there is strong evidence that Jesus and the gospel writers understood his life in a context that included the whole creation and that the metaphors of ‘the seed that fell into the earth’ as the sowing of ‘the word’ are central to this understanding. It seems to me that it is quite possible that the multiple occurrences of sowing of seed and the resultant harvest in the gospel are not just pictures of a coming Kingdom of Heaven in terms of peace between God and humans, or between humans and other humans, but they are actually also pictures of the coming great Shalom which includes the renewal of the earth and a new harmony among all creatures. In this case harvest becomes more than a metaphor. It is a thing of nature illustrating the renewal of nature. So when we imagine the mustard seed growing into a great tree or the young shoots of wheat growing in the ground we are to feel the renewal of the natural world occurring.

You may say that this is fanciful, and I might think so too, were it not that this idea is also clearly in the mind of other New Testament writers. Take Paul, for instance. Paul’s writings are conventionally expounded as the prime locus for understanding the work of Christ. Preachers spend whole sermons on a single verse of Romans! And it is almost always expounded simply in terms of human beings and their relationship with God. Yet for Paul it was bigger than that. There are some verses that simply don’t make sense to the human-centred gospel, like the idea for example that ‘the gospel has been preached to every creature under heaven’ (Colossians 1 v 23). Where does that come from? Search a little further and we notice that Paul’s idea of the great reconciliation, the great peace accomplished by Christ actually includes ‘all things’, meaning everything in the whole creation.In Colossians, for example, he speaks of Christ’s work

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1 v 20).

And of course the central mystery of this work was the resurrection of Christ and there again we see Paul taking up the metaphor of the seed sown. Paul is discussing how they are to think of those who have already died, or in his terms, have ‘fallen asleep’ and he is at pains to reassure his readers with these words.

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is alike…(1 Cor 15 v 36ff)

Wow! Here we have the very same picture. Back to Isaiah 40 again, a seed falling into the ground, understood as following from Christ as the divine seed, the one who goes before us all, so our death is now described in terms of a great renewal of rebirth.The words rebirth, of course, take us to another place. ‘Born again’ in some churches has become a shibboleth, a word that defines whether you are in or out, but otherwise almost devoid of meaning or broader connection. I am going to suggest that the true meaning of born again is intimately related to the renewal of the whole earth.  In 1 Peter we read

But you have been born anew, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God for ‘All flesh is grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides for ever’ That word is the good news which was preached to you. (1 Peter 1 v 23-25)

Again we have the metaphor of seed sown, now explicitly linked to Isaiah 40, and connected to the idea of being born again. Could it be that the true meaning of being born again in the minds of these first evangelists actually had something to do with the renewal of the earth? Was it, for example, that the Christians were experiencing within themselves a transformation of nature that would ultimately work itself out in the whole creation? Is this what it meant to be born again? In my view only this sort of reading can give account for Pauls’ words in Romans Chapter 8 where he speaks of the sufferings of the present time, the glory that is to be revealed and of the creation ‘waiting eagerly for the revealing of the children of God’. Somehow the inner transformation of the humans was to be a sign of a renewal of the whole earth, accomplished by Christ, the time when ‘the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ (Romans

There is much more to be said about this, but may I invite you to respond? I am aware that I am only scratching the surface of what I suspect is a very big idea. Can you help me develop it? Take some time to read these scriptures, let yourself go deep into the images and metaphors that they carry, perhaps try to express them in art, poetry or prayer, and let me know what it does to you as a person. 

If the good news of Christ is intimately linked to creation, then this must have powerful outworkings into the environmental movement of today. I am reminded of the parable of parables, that of the sower who went out to sow, and the great sadness implicit in the story about those who could not receive the word. What I think I see now is that an integral part of that ‘word’ is a calling to seek the peace of creation. The good news, the Kingdom of God and Shalom are synonymous. We can no longer call ourselves Christians and live our earth destructive lifestyles.  Let us examine our hearts and see whether they be good soil.

Talk to me about these things.

Chris Sunderland October 2007 

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[1] John’s usage probably also draws from a Hebrew tradition which hesitated to speak actually of God and would often use ‘The word of God’ as a more respectful alternative. Attention should also be paid to the Greek culture of the evangelist’s day and their use of logos (the greek word translated as ‘the word’) as more fully meaning ‘divine reason’. This may have been part of the reason for making the connection with Proverbs 8.