GOSPEL MEDITATION # 184
Mark 4:21-29
A Lamp Under a Basket & The Parable of the Growing Seed
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- The first parable, “a lamp under a basket” continues the theme of the sower of seed. Now instead of sowing, the metaphor is letting the light shine for all to see.
- The metaphor of fire is used by Jesus. Fire was light and heat, vital to the people in that day and this.
- Clearly, a lamp was put on a stand not under a basket or a bed.
- The Light is Jesus and His Word, His Gospel. The Gospel was not held by the disciples as a mystery or a secret – the opposite of much religion of that day. Not for the elite, but for all.
- Those who broadcast, those doing the work, will be given more and more opportunity to do so; and sadly there is the opposite.
- This principle is evident in most every endeavor people undertake.
- Our second parable, the parable of the growing seed, again it plays off the parable of the sower.
- It is assumed that the sower, the farmer, the evangelist is busy scattering the seed on the ground. We already know that there are any number of places, four really, the seed could fall upon.
- Patiently the farmer waits for the seed to do its work, which it always does when the seed is good and healthy.
- The sower does not understand how it all works, indeed, he does not have to. Time and again the sower spreads the seed and time and again he watches the miracle take place. With an actual farmer the miracle is built into the process. With the witness the harvest is purely miraculous.
- The Holy Spirit does the work from beginning to end. First a person sees their own sinful nature as well as their hopeless efforts to relieve themselves of their sin. Only then will they see their need of the Savior’s sacrifice on the cross.
- The farmer knows the harvest will come and that there will be rejoicing.