Parable of the Mustard Seed / Matthew 13:31–35 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Wednesday April 2nd 2025 / Season of Lent / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Wednesday April 2nd 2025: Season of Lent Midweek Preaching Exchange / Matthew 13:31–35 “Parable of the Mustard Seed - The Hidden Revealed”

[Jesus] put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, He said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:

        “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter what has been

hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends when I was a kid there was a popular series of books for kids, the “Where’s Waldo” books, these where books where you would look for the aforementioned Waldo amidst the very detailed and colourful pages trying to find him in the crowd. He was dressed with a striped red and white shirt and toque and wore a pair of dark rimmed round glasses and while it was challenge to find him it wasn’t impossible, especially if you knew who you were looking for and took your time looking at every square inch of the pages. Now the proverbial needle in a hay stack is much harder still, it’s smaller and tougher to spot, it doesn’t have a striped red and white shirt and toque and wears no dark rimmed round glasses, in fact the way you might find it would likely be by accident, you’d have a better chance being stuck by it as you sifted your fingers through the hay, than you would by noticing it with your eyes.

Now Jesus in the first of our parables today says that, “the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.” [And then Jesus says of the grain of mustard seed that] “It is the smallest of all seeds,” so if someone took one mustard seed and sowed it in a quarter section of farmland, without you seeing where they had put it, would it be easier or harder than finding Waldo in a Where’s Waldo book, would it be easier or harder than finding a needle in a hay stack? A mustard seed has no sharp point to prick your finger as you sift through the soil.

What if it wasn’t a haystack or a quarter section? What if it was a 42 quarter sections of farmland? What if the field of Jesus’ parable was bigger than that? What if it was made up of all the fields of the world, every bit of land ever turned over for the purpose of yielding a crop? How on earth would you be able to find it? How would you find that mustard seed which Jesus says is the smallest of all seeds? Well you wouldn’t be able to find it if stayed small like that, but Jesus in His parable says, “But when [that mustard seed] has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Suddenly you could pick it out in a field of wheat or barley, because it would stand above the rest of what was growing there in that field and the birds of the air will not make their nests in the branches of the wheat and barley for they have no branches or strength to support those nests.       

It was smack dab in the mounting festivities of a high holy day, but for him it was just another day. He wasn’t into their religion or their God, serving where he did he knew enough about their God and their religion but he had his own. He also had a hundred men under his command and every one of them were on high alert, the air crackled with the threat of violence but that was ok because he was a violent man himself and he and his hundred could hold their own if need be. Peculiar things had taken place that day, the sun had lost its light at noonday and there was thick darkness over the land and all because of one man, a man they had crucified under orders of the governor pressured by the local religious authorities. This man who had arrived to the thunder of the gathered crowd’s approval at the beginning of the week had now mockingly been paraded to death and nailed to a cross flanked with a couple criminals opposed to the empire.

On that day, for some reason, everything suddenly seemed to be focused on this roughly beaten and bloodied yet eloquent teacher, a man both hard and gentle, in nature both energetic and patient who had endured more than the solider thought possible who’s practically unrecognizable face now lifelessly looked silently down upon him as the darkness lifted and when the centurion, who stood facing [Jesus], saw that in this way [Jesus] breathed His last, [the centurion] said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”[1]

Before that moment He was just another man who had crossed the wrong people, but with every drop of blood from His thorn crowned brow this man nailed to the cross of His crucifixion became more and more a King, more and more the Son of God in the eyes of the centurion. Not that Jesus was changing, He was the King of kings and Lord of lords before that moment[2] but in that moment He was being revealed. It was being revealed that in Him being lifted up the proverbial needle in the haystack was found and the centurion was in truth being pulled through the eye of that needle like an unknotted thread. Suddenly the wooden beams of the cross and Jesus’ arms nailed their and pulled across their width became the outstretched branches of the full grown Mustard Tree and he, the centurion, a bird making its nest in its branches. That centurion would have overseen many crucifixions but not one like the one that day, by comparison all the others were like mown hay gathered in a heap this Jesus however who hung there exhibited unmatchable strength and holiness, all righteousness and all virtue was embodied in Him, He was a remarkable vision unexpectedly painted in flesh and blood upon this Roman soldier’s heart and mind and soul.

Of Himself, early on before His death, Jesus had said to Nicodemus, one of the teachers of the Jewish people, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”[3] And in the week leading up to His death that first Holy Week Jesus, knowing what was to come, said to some of the God-fearing Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover festival who were seeking to see Him,[4] “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” [And to make this abundantly clear Saint John who recorded that moment for you provides this commentary saying] He said this [to them] to show by what kind of death He was going to die.[5]

So Jesus, when Jesus talks about being lifted up, is speaking of His crucifixion, and looking upon His crucifixion, hearing the account of it read to you, hearing it preached to you has an effect. Some will turn away, some will jeer and mock, some will believe and what will they believe? Jesus explained in advance to the people of that time how it will be, that “when [they] have lifted up the Son of Man, then [they] will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority, but speak just as the Father taught Me.” [And Jesus continued to say to them] “And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” [Saint John tells us that even before the crucifixion had occurred] “As [Jesus] was saying these things, many believed in Him.”[6]

You might say to yourself, “O that I was that Centurion under ‘The Mustard Tree’ of The Cross that day on Good Friday to nest as a bird in the outstretched arms of Jesus there on Mount Calvary!” or perhaps you catch yourself lamenting, “Some days the thread of my life feels so knotted with sin that I can’t imagine being thread through the needle of Christ Crucified, these knots are keeping me from being pulled through,” or maybe you think to yourself, “I feel so far from the kingdom of God, in my sin am I not as lost in the crowd as Waldo? What Am I to do, O “wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”[7] Dear ones, it is Jesus who finds you in the crowd,[8] it is Jesus who loosens the knots of your sin[9] and pulls you through the eye of the needle,[10] it is Jesus who’s Kingdom in revealed to you.[11]

Lastly, keep this is mind, Jesus teaches, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [that is: clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals ... [yes] all that [you] need to support this body and life][12] will be added to you,”[13] and not only these practical material things but the blessed gift of faith as well; yet remember if God did not want to be found He wouldn’t say “seek, and you will find;”[14] if Jesus didn’t want “what has been hidden since the foundation of the world” to be found He wouldn’t have been “conceived by the Holy Spirit” or “born of the Virgin Mary,” He would not have ultimately made His Kingdom to be like a mustard seed grown into a mustard tree for all the world to see. Remember what Saint Paul writes the Christians of Galatia, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”[15] His life, death and resurrection was not hidden, it grew from a promise first sown into the ears and into the hearts of Adam and Eve down through the centuries like that small mustard seed growing and growing and growing until in His incarnation and in Jesus’ every step to His cross and passion straight out of the grave to the mount of His Ascension that Mustard Seed of a promise was no longer a hidden thing, but a promised fulfilled and made into a visible thing for all to see. In Christ the Kingdom of God is made manifest: And we are now called to confess this and proclaim it and to trust in this.[16]

Therefore, there is great danger when someone refuses to look for the Lord in the Book of God’s Word, when they refuse to search for the eye of the needle revealed in the hay stack of history, when they refuse to look upon the fruit of this blessed Mustard Seed grown to maturity in the Cross of Jesus’ Passion. What protection and providence of God will they expect to have if they choose to make their nest elsewhere apart from the outstretched branches of that Mustard Tree?

When you look upon The Mustard Tree of Jesus’ cross standing tall in the field of the world you know where to build your nest, do not hide what you know, show others where to build their nest in this life and remember the invitation and warning of the Lord as Jesus looked upon Jerusalem leading up to His Good Friday death and His Easter Sunday resurrection from the grave, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”[17] With willing lips the centurion at the foot of the cross said “Truly this man was the Son of God!” “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”[18] Yes, “[Jesus] Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.”[19] This is the Kingdom of God and His by grace you are in it. Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Mark 15:39
[2] Revelation 17:14; 19:16
[3] John 3:14–15
[4] John 12:21
[5] John 12:32–33
[6] John 8:28–30
[7] Romans 7:24
[8] Matthew 9:12–13; Luke 19:10
[9] Matthew 9:2-5; Matthew 18:18; John 20:21-23
[10] Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25,
[11] Matthew 13:10-13
[12] First Article, Creed, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 16.
[13] Matthew 6:33
[14] Matthew 7:7
[15] Galatians 3:1
[16] 1 Timothy 3:16
[17] Matthew 23:37
[18] Romans 10:10–11
[19] 1 Peter 2:24

Photo Credit: main photo of a Corn Bunting amid mustard flowers from wikimedia commons.