Johnny Appleseed is an American folk hero.
Admittedly, Johnny Appleseed the legend and Johnny Appleseed the actual man contrast sharply in some ways. BUT, in both versions, the man – born John Chapman in Massachusetts in 1774 – planted thousands of apple seeds in the American wilderness.
Hiking barefoot, sometimes wearing his cooking pan for a hat, he sowed apple nurseries in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. One source reported that he went ahead of the pioneers, planting his apple trees as he went. As a result, settlers who followed in later years were attracted to the orchards, and towns grew up around them.
Seed Power
Johnny Appleseed carried bags full of seeds. Those seeds foreshadowed forests. A massive amount of wood and leaves sprang from the tiny bits of life, piled into a bag and slung across the back of a single man.
And so, it is hardly surprising that God compares His Word to seeds. Jesus told a parable about a farmer going out to plant his seed. The resulting plants flourished or floundered, based on the places where the seed landed – on a hard path; on rocky, shallow land; among thorns; or on good soil.
When His disciples asked Him what the parable meant, Jesus explained that the seeds represent God’s Word. Just as seeds can take root and flourish or wither and die, so too can God’s Word that has been sown in a human heart. (You can read the parable in Matthew 13, Mark 4, or Luke 8.)
Undoubtedly, Jesus was talking to future “farmers,” the men who would take His Word and sow it in the hearts of people throughout the known world. And because the parable has been written down and passed down through the ages, we know that we are the modern “farmers” who bear the responsibility of sowing God’s seed today.
If Johnny Appleseed exuberantly scattered apple seeds across the wilderness, how much greater should be our joy in sharing God’s Word? And doesn’t the parable suggest that we don’t need to worry what kind of soil is receiving the Word? We sow it wherever we can and, as in the natural world, germination is God’s job.
Mystery Seed
And now, we come to the ultimate reason we are called to be spiritual Johnny Appleseeds. For there is a mystery seed, and it is the human body. Every person who lives will eventually be buried in the earth (or cremated.) We will lie dormant for an unknown span of time. But one day, we will “germinate.”
Every person who has received God’s Word, tended it and nurtured it, letting it flower and bear fruit in their life, will eventually receive a spiritual body. It will be beautiful – a glorified body – suitable for everlasting life in God’s Heaven.
Sadly, every person who has rejected God’s Word will also live forever, but they will not be allowed in God’s Heaven. And their new body will be suited for a different environment. It will not be a happy place, and they will be trapped there for eternity. But they will be there because they chose to be.
And so, although Christians are not to be sappy pollyannas spreading sunshine and lollipops like dolts, we do have the opportunity to be Johnny Appleseeds, sharing the good news that there is a beautiful new world coming. We can be the ones who help the precious souls around us understand their eternal destiny as seeds.
Plus, by looking to Jesus as our Lord and King, we can improve our lot in this life exponentially. In Him, we find love, peace, hope, and courage. Through Jesus we can have abundant life and eternal life. What richness!
So, let’s take off our shoes, put our pots on our heads, and go sow God’s Word.
Experiencing the Mystery of the Seed
The seed was dry and wrinkled and brown,
And I surveyed it with a puzzled frown.
“This seems wrong,” I complained,
“I don’t want a shriveled grain.
It is something lovely I need,
Not an ugly, little seed.
My house is drab and dark and gray.
Please give me something bright and beautiful and gay.”
By my wise, old friend only winked
As he buried it in a pot and watered it at the sink.
“Go on home, child,” he smiled.
“Put it in the sunshine and watch it for awhile.
You shall have your loveliness,
And the beauty will fill your heart with happiness.
But you shall have more; listen to me,
For if you watch and wait, you’ll learn a mystery.”
So, hiding disappointment, I took the old pot
And set it in my window with many bitter thoughts.
But unknown to me, there was a miracle of birth
Unfolding in the darkness of that little bit of earth.
And what was brown became a sprout of green
And the sprout grew to be the loveliest flower I’ve ever seen.
Yet neither its beauty nor its grace was my delight,
But the miracle of growing a flower from a seed by the power of the light.
One day, I returned to ask the wise, old man,
“Explain to me the mystery - I only partially understand.”
Then he put me before a mirror and asked, “What do you see?”
“Nothing so great,” I replied. “That’s only me.”
“Well, child, you are a seed.
One day, you will be planted in the ground, but if your spirit lives, it will be freed.
Then when eternity dawns, spirit and body will join and rise.
And you will no longer be this poor, dark seed, but instead a flower that will delight your Master’s eyes!”
Poem based on I Corinthians 15.
Love the metaphor—spiritual Johnny Appleseeds, indeed!
Thank you for your comment – you made my day!