The Inexplicable (to us) Kingdom

Mark 4:26-34

There are some things which are inexplicable. We probably all know some stories which defy our explanation, no matter how hard we try to make them intelligible. We might think of some miraculous situation wherein a series of events resulted in an astounding conclusion. The cancer suddenly disappeared. The little girl escaped the crash without a scratch on her. The YouTube video of somebody completing a stunt which defies physics. We might think of that time when we or somebody we know acted in a way which was completely out of character. My dad, a man with a meticulous eye for detail, once threw out his watch with some dinner trash. (We found it there later that evening.) That happened twenty years ago, and it was so inexplicable that it has stuck with me to this day.
It is this inexplicable nature of the kingdom which Jesus highlights in these two parables. In the first, seeds are planted by a sower, and they grow without his knowledge. He has no explanation. He put them in the ground, and they became plants which he was able to harvest. Some things must have happened in the background, but he cannot describe them. In the second, the tiniest of all the seeds becomes the largest of all shrubs. How can so small a thing become so great? The sower has no explanation. It defies reason, it defies knowledge, it defies expectation; and yet it happens. All the sower can do is revel in the fact that this is what happens.
Of course, to say that these things are inexplicable only means that they are so to us. To God who made and ordained them, they are as they should be. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight” (Heb 4:13). God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:8). What God has chosen to do is what will happen because he will make it so (Isa 46:11). These are good things to remember with regards to the inexplicable (to us) Kingdom of God. God calls people to his service whom we did not expect (Zacchaeus, anyone?). God’s word goes to place where we would not expect (Samaria, anyone?). God works in mysterious ways which are inexplicable to us, and yet his kingdom grows as he ordained. Sometimes we have not else but to marvel at his work. -TL

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