“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 12:24
“While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.
John 12:36
The cosmos and existence of our world there within function in magnificently intricate ways, macro and micro. Light and darkness co-exist within this paradoxical universe. Examples of resurrected life via death are everywhere, in nature and in us alike, both literally and, indeed, if you’re open to it, spiritually.
Jesus prophetically points to an example of one such evidence of God’s mysterious paradox, using a single grain of wheat, which bares potent mystery and magic. By pointing to a non-human form, I believe to be of vital importance in Jesus’s message if we’re to better understand our place as a species within the universe. On the most intricate level, atomically, God imbues everything with the capacity to be of benefit to its surroundings while living, and perhaps more so after death.
A tree in the woods, an animal, and yes, when we humans die, God’s fabulously intricate processes happen. While living, the tree, the animal, humans provide sustenance and shelter to a host of other forms. When they die, they continue to, but in different ways. God’s intricate systems are always and everywhere dying and supporting new life.
- Isaiah 49:1-7
- Psalm 71:1-14
- 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
- John 12:20-36
