“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see; everything has become new!” Paul’s description of “a new creation” in our epistle brings up for me Jesus’ statement elsewhere (Jn.12:24): “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” and that speaks to me of the seeds in Jesus’ parables of the kingdom in our gospel for today.

This seedwork, this aborning creation, is God at work in your life and mine. The spiritual seed that God plants in you is somehow different from the one that God plants in me, but both require a period of gestation in the earth, the rich humus of our deepest selves. While God is busily planting his seeds deep within us, we may be unaware of his activity. We may think we are doing everything entirely on our own, that we are in control, but out of sight, in the deep recesses of our souls, the Lord is preparing us for this new creation that God will bring forth in us one day at a time. We may not even notice when the first tiny seedling pops through the surface of our lives, but as the seedling is nurtured by the light of God’s love and the living water of the Spirit, it grows, as Jesus says, “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head” ripe and ready to feed others.

This new creation that is coming forth in our hearts and lives is impossible for us to ignore. We are different! We may not know how, but we know that we are. The transforming hand of God is fashioning us into the imago dei, the image of God that we were designed to be. We are becoming a new creation, full of compassion and love, on fire with joy and delight, consumed with desire to love and serve the Lord as we “put forth large branches” to make room for others in this new creation of our lives.