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Sound & Season is a daily audio devotional designed to connect the routine moments of life to the rhythms of the Church seasons.
This is Sound and Season. It's Thursday, the 8th day of Lent. Our passage today comes from the gospel of Mark, chapter 4, verses 1 through 20. Again, he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land, and he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
Lauren Starnes:The other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And the other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30 fold and 60 fold and a 100 fold. And he said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Lauren Starnes:And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. And he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for those outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive. They may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable?
Lauren Starnes:How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground, the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and when they have no root in themselves, but endure it for a while, then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns.
Lauren Starnes:They are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, 30 fold and 60 fold and a 100 fold. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Jeffrey Heine:Here we arrive at the first parable of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, the parable of the sower. Cyril of Alexandria wrote in his commentary, Parables are word pictures, not of visible things, but rather of things of the mind and the spirit. That which cannot be seen with the eyes of the body, a parable will reveal to the eyes of the mind, informing the subtlety of the intellect, by means of things perceivable by the senses, as if it were tangible. In the parable, Jesus is describing the sowing of His word. Clement of Alexandria said, there's only one cultivator of the soil of the human soul.
Jeffrey Heine:It is the one who from the beginning, from the foundations of the world, has been sowing living seeds by which all things grow. This Lent, let us ask the Spirit that he would help remove the thorns, thistles, and rocks from the soil of our souls, that the roots of God's word would grow deeper as we trust and love him more and more each passing hour.
Lauren Starnes:Lord, hear our prayer, and let our cry come to you. Let us pray. Spirit of God, would you breathe new life within us? Cleanse us, oh Lord, of the hindrances that keep us from the truth of your gospel. Oh, lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lauren Starnes:Glory to the father, and to the son, and to the holy spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen.