“Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed.'” (Matthew 13:3)

Jesus’ parable of the sower and the soils begins with the farmer sowing his seed into the soils around. There is a wondrous extravagance, even an open-handed wildness, to the way the farmer sows the seed. Later, when interpreting the parable to His disciples, Jesus says the seed is: “the message of the kingdom” sown in a person’s heart (13:19). Just before that, He describes the seed as “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven [that] has been given to you” (13:11).

What is the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven? What is this message? Well, in very simple terms it is the reality that God has come to us in Jesus of Nazareth. He is God in the flesh, yes, fully God and fully man. He has come to save us from the power over sin, by which we stand guilty before God. He has come to forgive us as the great sacrifice at the Cross. He has come to free us from the power of evil, which keeps us imprisoned and separated from God. He has come to liberate and set us free at the Cross.  He has come to reconcile us back to God, to heal and restore our relationship with the God who has created us. He has come as a great relational reconciler at the Cross.

If you’ve never experienced that forgiveness in Jesus, that freedom in Jesus, that re-connection with God through Jesus, then maybe today should be the day to reach out to God and tell Him you want to experience that. Why not let this be the day you begin a journey with God?

And if you have experienced the power of Jesus’ message being sown into your life, let today be a day you celebrate that great gift. Lift up Jesus in your words and heart today. Worship Him and thank Him. Then, go out and share Jesus with others in both your words and deeds. Friends, this seed of the kingdom of heaven is the greatest gift God has ever given and the greatest gift we could ever know.

As Jesus also says just before His explanation of the parable:

Blessed are your eyes because they see, and you ear because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (13:16-17)

Let us savor the seed sown into our lives in Jesus Christ. The secrets of the kingdom of heaven are now ours in Christ through the Cross and the Resurrection.