Today's Devotion

Wednesday of Lent 1, February 25, 2026 - Mark 4:1-20

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

The crowds have heard about the miracles, the healings, and the exorcisms. Desperate people are bringing their family and friends to wherever Jesus is. But Jesus is also a preacher. More accurately, He is the Preacher. He is proclaiming the kingdom, not as a prophet, not as a positive-thinking guru, not as a motivational speaker. Nor is He a run-of-the-mill teacher of the Scriptures. Jesus is announcing the kingdom not in some far-off future, but here and now, and not as yet one more forerunner, but as the King. Jesus has come to declare the Word fulfilled, and to sow the seed of the Word by preaching.

Our Lord does not teach like the Pharisees: making up rules and commanding people to keep them. Rather, He is teaching them about the kingdom that the crowds are invited into, and about Himself as the King. Instead of more rules, He proclaims the Good News that the Law is fulfilled in Himself, that His kingdom is a realm not of power, but of grace, and that this kingdom is propagated not by laws and armies, but rather by preaching and by preachers. This kingdom grows like plants in nature tended and cultivated by men – just as the Garden of Eden was designed to work.

For God’s creative plan is embedded in the DNA code of the seed. Every cell of every seed contains the creative fingerprint of the Creator. And the seed – though normally dormant – when activated, unleashes an unstoppable force that persists through generations and across the millennia. Every plant that lives today is the result of thousands of years of generation and re-generation: an unbroken chain that began in the week of creation. And even though creation has been corrupted by sin and death, this process continues to our own day, providing “seed to the sower and bread to the eater” (Isa 55:10). Jesus compares the Word of God to sprouting seeds that grow and multiply, even as does Isaiah (verse 11).

“The sower sows the Word,” says Jesus. But in our fallen world, not every seed sprouts, grows, or bears fruit. There are many obstacles along the way. But the sower continues to sow everywhere, and growth can, and does, happen in ways that are unpredictable. The Word of God is opposed by “soil” that rejects the seed, whether by being too hard, exposing the seed to the devil, who “takes away the Word,” or by being too shallow, resulting in rapid growth with no root to withstand “tribulation or persecution,” or by growing up into competition with “the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things.”

But when the Word is preached into “good soil,” we see the creative instructions embedded in the seed “bear fruit,” even multiplying, leading to an expansion of the kingdom.

Jesus is using this parable to teach us about Himself, about His kingdom, about the announcement of the kingdom through the preaching of the Good News, and about how people all over the world receive this proclamation. The power does not lie within the preacher, but within the Word. And yet, the Word must be preached, even as seed must be sown. And the Word must be believed, even as seed must germinate and grow. And the Word must be permitted to do what God has intended it to do. And preachers and hearers alike must believe the Word of God, that this Word “shall accomplish that which [God] purpose[s], and shall succeed in the thing for which [He] sent it” (Isa 55:11).

Jesus is more than a prophet, like Isaiah. He is the Word about whom the prophet preached. He is truly the Sower, and all preachers today proclaim Him. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.