For March 24th, 2026

Seed to plenty

In the Gospel of John, we have the longest timeline of Jesus’s ministry which is about 3years. What is also interesting is that just under half of the Gospel is John is focused on what we call passion week. This is the time beginning with Jesus’s triumphal entry to the resurrection. During passion week Jesus does a great deal of teaching, some of it about His upcoming death. One such teaching is found in John chapter 12:20-26. In these verses Jesus talks about how a seed, which has the beginning of a new plant must die to being a seed, or in other words it needs to stop being a seed so that the new plant may come to life. In energy terms the seed has potential life, it is not until it is planted that the potential turns into kinetic energy or in plant terms, a new plant.
Jesus is telling His disciples that unless He dies the ministry that He came to do and truly fulfill will not reach its fulfilment just like the seed. But when the seed is planted it allows a plant to grow and produce more than just the one seed itself. In Jesus’s life we see the work of the disciples. In Jesus’s death we see the work of the church empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus’s death brings resurrection and new hope.
Passion week is coming very shortly. It is a week of many ups and downs, joys and fears, death and life. It is a reminder that even in the face of death, there is the hope for resurrection and life.