This Saturday (March 20th) marks the first day of spring! As a young boy this meant more hours to spend playing outside, signing up for baseball, the early scent of freshly mowed grass (probably more weeds than grass), and soon the first sounds of the bullfrogs on the farm pond behind our house. But it was also the season I would spend more time with my Papa (my mom’s dad) on his farm. Spring was planting season – the almanac was consulted, the ground was prepared, seeds selected, and planting was underway. To be sure it was the harvest that was the long-anticipated and joy-filled event, but it was the planting that was the first step.
Many evangelical leaders have often observed that today we are living in an unseeded generation. Basically, they are referring to the noticeable change that so many in our current context simply do not understand the basic truths of the Gospel and that it takes much more intentionality to see men and women come to faith in Christ today. In Matthew 13 we encounter what is often called the Parable of the Sower and our usual focus is on the four types of soil and the outcome of seed sown in each type of soil. But we often overlook the fact that the seed didn’t just fall on that soil on its own. The sower is the one that is taking the message of the Gospel to the world around them. So if we live in an unseeded generation, we must ask the question, “why?”
In a few short weeks, we will observe Resurrection Sunday. It is on this day, more than any other on the calendar, that we are reminded of the victorious resurrection of Christ Jesus after having died for our sins. This awesome news that Jesus has lived a life of obedience even unto death in our place and on the third day rose, conquering the power of sin and the grave once for all is the seed that our generation needs today.
Eastmont family, let us then take this message of hope to those around us and watch as the Lord produces a harvest of “a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.”