Second Sunday after Trinity — Year B — exegesis on the Gospel: Mark 4:26-34

The Second Sunday after Trinity is June 13, 2021.

These are the readings for Year B.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Mark 4:26-34

4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,

4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.

4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?

4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;

4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;

4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

I am starting with the last verse first today, because John MacArthur explains why Jesus did not explain the parables to others outside of His circle:

So, there was a time when Jesus was proclaiming the truth, and they had heard and believed the truth. But there’s been a very interesting turn in the tide of things … In fact, if you go back to verse 11, Jesus says to the disciples and the apostles, “It has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive; while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.” They’re past grace; they’re past forgiveness; they’re past believing.

What has happened is in all these months of ministry in Galilee day after day after day after day, the final verdict of many of the people and the leaders in Galilee is they reject Jesus Christ. Not only do they reject Him, but according to chapter 3, verse 22, they say, “He’s possessed by Beelzebul and cast out demons by the ruler of the demons.” And that’s when it says He began speaking to them in parables.

They made their final verdict, and they rejected Jesus. And now in an act of divine judgment, he cuts them off from any further truth. And so, in regard to the disciples, he speaks to them explaining the parables.

When the crowd gathers, He speaks to the crowd in parables without explanation. From now on, in His ministry in Galilee, He doesn’t explain anything because they have made their final decision. Our Lord’s judgment then is to withhold the light from that generation of Jews in Galilee who had finally rejected Him and were beyond hope …

So, the point is this, the plan is the light will shine, the seed will be sown. For the moment, a judgment has been rendered on those people in Galilee who made their final decision. But just a few chapters later, there are other folks in other places, even in Galilee, as well as later on in Judea to whom they are to go.

But the assumption, when He sends them out in chapter 6, verses 7 to 13, is that they’re going to be rejected. He tells them if they – “If they reject you, just shake the dust off your feet and get out of there.” But that was a kind of a training mission for what would finally be their full commission.

Now, this is in accord with the divine intention. If you go to verse 22, you see that in the next little parable. Nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor has anything been secret that it – but that it would come to light. This is a simple, simple, little concept. People hide things because there’s a certain time that they need to be revealed.

Mark 4 begins with the Parable of the Sower. The Lamp under a Basket follows. The Parable of the Seed Growing and that of the Mustard Seed, today’s reading, follows that.

Jesus discusses the divine plan for the Church, comparing it to someone planting seed (verse 26).

Matthew Henry’s commentary says:

The good seed of the gospel sown in the world, and sown in the heart, doth by degrees produce wonderful effects, but without noise (Mark 4:26; Mark 4:26, c.) So is the kingdom of God; so is the gospel, when it is sown, and received, as seed in good ground.

As the sower’s days and nights pass, and he knows not how, the seed sprouts and grows (verse 27), first into a stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head (verse 28).

Henry makes the following comparisons to the word of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit:

1. It will come up; though it seem lost and buried under the clods, it will find or make its way through them. The seed cast into the ground will spring. Let but the word of Christ have the place it ought to have in a soul, and it will show itself, as the wisdom from above doth in a good conversation …

2. The husbandman cannot describe how it comes up; it is one of the mysteries of nature; It springs and grows up, he knows not how,Mark 4:27; Mark 4:27. He sees it has grown, but he cannot tell in what manner it grew, or what was the cause and method of its growth. Thus we know not how the Spirit by the word makes a change in the heart, any more than we can account for the blowing of the wind, which we hear the sound of, but cannot tell whence it comes, or whither it goes. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness; how God manifested in the flesh came to be believed on in the world, 1 Timothy 3:16.

3. The husbandman, when he hath sown the seed, doth nothing toward the springing of it up; He sleeps, and rises, night and day; goes to sleep at night, gets up in the morning, and perhaps never so much as thinks of the corn he hath sown, or ever looks upon it, but follows his pleasures or other business, and yet the earth brings forth fruit of itself, according to the ordinary course of nature, and by the concurring power of the God of nature. Thus the word of grace, when it is received in faith, is in the heart a work of grace, and the preachers contribute nothing to it. The Spirit of God is carrying it on when they sleep, and can do no business (Job 33:15; Job 33:16), or when they rise to go about other business …

MacArthur points out the Greek used in verse 28:

I love this, verse 28, “The soil produces crops by itself.” It’s the Greek word automatē, from which we get the English word “automatically.” It’s divinely automatic. How encouraging is that? Regeneration, transformation, spiritual transition, conversion, new birth can’t be produced by anyone or any human means. The whole process is divinely automatic. You can’t start it, and you can’t stop it. And once it starts, it goes to the full.

When the grain matures, the farmer knows it it time to harvest it (verse 29).

MacArthur says that, for believers, the enjoyment of the harvest will be ours forever, not just as part of a church community:

… one way we enjoy the harvest is fellowship, don’t we? This is fellowship. Another way, in eternity in the future, friends for eternity, that we don’t even know now that we’ll meet then. So, forever and ever, we will enjoy the harvest. We’ll taste the harvest.

Jesus then segues into the Parable of the Mustard Seed by asking what can be compared to the Kingdom of God (verse 30). He answers by saying that the mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds (verse 31), yet grows into the greatest of shrubs, able to accommodate nesting birds (verse 32).

MacArthur says that the mustard seed was the smallest known to them:

Now, a mustard seed was the smallest seed that they used in their farming. It wasn’t the actual smallest seed on the planet, but it was proverbial for something small to them because it was the one they were familiar with. Matthew 17:20, “Jesus said, ‘If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed’” – and so forth. So, that was their proverbial expression for something very small, and it was the size of a grain of sand.

But proportionately, there was nothing that they planted that started that small and became so large. A mustard bush would be up to 15 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. A massive thing to come out of a seed the size of a grain of sand. And what our Lord is saying to them is obvious. There’s no explanation here. The small beginnings, guys, do not give you any indication of where this is going.

Therefore, from small beginnings a great Church will grow and expand, as we saw in the reading from Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday.

Mark tells us that Jesus spoke to the disciples in parables to the extent that they could understand them (verse 33).

Henry says:

The glory of the Lord was covered with a cloud, and God speaks to us in the language of the sons of men, that, though not at first, yet by degrees, we may understand his meaning; the disciples themselves understood those sayings of Christ afterward, which at first they did not rightly take the sense of. But these parables he expounded to them, when they were alone. We cannot but wish we had had that exposition, as we had of the parable of the sower; but it was not so needful; because, when the church should be enlarged, that would expound these parables to us, without any more ado.

MacArthur offers us a practical application of these two parables:

The promise is the Lord will bless the seed you sow. The Lord will return to you blessing. It doesn’t mean that all the seed you sow will bring about salvation, but what it does mean is that as you are faithful to sow the seed God will be faithful to give you in return. And not just equally. Because at the end of verse 24, “And more will be given to you besides.” And at the beginning of verse 25, “For whoever has, to him more shall be given.” If you’re one of those who has, that is you have eternal life, you have the truth, you have the seed, you will receive not only in measure what you’ve done but far more.

This is Luke 6:38, Jesus said, “Give, and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” And it will come from men in this life, and from God and spiritual blessing, and in the future eternal blessing.

So, I say we listen obediently and appreciatively because of the promise of reward the Lord has given to us as faithful listeners who let what we hear be known to others …

So, we throw the seed, and we shine the light obediently because of the innate obligation, and appreciatively because of the individual opportunity. Each one of us will receive personally the blessing of God on our faithfulness and much, much, much more than we deserve.

What an encouraging thought to lead us into the week ahead.

May all reading this enjoy a blessed Sunday.