Where the progress of God’s Kingdom is concerned, things are not always as they immediately may seem to be. Growth of an important sort may take place out of sight and behind the scenes, and only afterwards does the extent of it become evident. This is true about quite ordinary things as well.

The growth of a child is invisible to the eye, and then it seems all of a sudden that that child has become fully a man or a woman. It is true also about negative things, like the development of a disease or a tumour. It is better to catch them early, but they have a way of creeping up on you before they are revealed. After feeling a certain roughness in the way the church van was handling some time ago in heavy rain, after a prayer to get home safely I did so.

The next day I found that a back tyre had worn unevenly and in one place right down to the wire. Realising it was close to blowing out I took the wheel off the van and put it in my Jeep to have the tyre changed, rather than driving the van to the garage.

The wheel remained for a day in the Jeep, and when I opened the hatch the following day to take it out I found that the tyre had actually blown out in the back of the Jeep. A little too close for comfort but the Lord is good!

The two parables our Lord uses in Mark 4: 26-32 are of seeds that are scattered or sown, and as such are left to do their own thing, so to speak. They begin very tiny, but in due course they sprout and grow. Whatever the gardener or the farmer contributes then to their growth is not given any part in these parables.

Whether growth takes place or not does not now depend upon him. Between the initial and final activities of sowing and reaping it is a matter of confidence in the vitality of the seed and in the fruitfulness of the interaction between seed and soil. Jesus said that the tiny mustard seed grows into a tree that is larger than the other plants in the garden.

Behind the scenes the seeds of the Word of God or of Christian teaching or example will take root and become in time a force to be reckoned with wherever they are planted. Obvious and immediate growth may not be evident, but that does not mean that nothing is happening. That can be true of course of the Church, be it an individual congregation or the Church as a whole.

If it is the seeds of the Kingdom of God that are being scattered, we may be sure that there will be some large trees eventually. It is always part of the prophetic outlook that real growth or changes may be occurring out of sight to spring forth at a later time.

This prophetic outlook is embodied in the whole Christian world-view. The death of Jesus on the Cross was in immediate terms the most horrific thing imaginable, and in those immediate terms it is, as St. Paul says, a stumbling-block to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek. But the death and the Resurrection of Jesus were the key behind-the-scenes moves through which mankind could be created anew.

In 2 Corinthians 5: 14-17, St. Paul describes that new human creation as a life that is controlled by the love of Christ. The love of Christ controls us, he says, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. Now what Paul is describing is the new perspective, the new and radically different world-view that we as Christian are called to take on.

The cost of discipleship is the cost of dying. Christ has died not only in our place, but on our behalf. Since He died on our behalf, that means that in Him, we have died. But Christ was raised from the dead too, and in His Resurrection those that are His have been raised to life too.

Paul concludes that those who live, do so no longer for themselves, but for Him. We no longer look at people and life in the old way of humanity. We have taken on the new world-view of Jesus Christ. All this is part of what is meant by being a new creation. “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come.”

It may be tempting to put this all down to what we might consider to be St. Paul’s extravagant ways of expressing himself. Most Christians are probably painfully aware that there is much about their own personal life that doesn’t seem to be as different as they think it ought to be.

How can we possibly think of ourselves as participating in a “new creation” when we see the boldness of unbelievers and feel all the humdrum pressures that not only are common to humanity but seem magnified in ourselves?

How can we think of ourselves as being a new creation when we ourselves are tempted and battling with sin of one kind or another?

Let us remember that this is a work in progress, not one that will ever be quite completed on this side of eternity. We are not permitted to see the growth that is taking place that will eventually blossom and bloom in eternity. Let us no doubt that our destiny is to be controlled by the love of Christ, who died and rose again for us, that we too might live for Him.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org