“The Seed and the Soils: Why the Service Is So Word-Heavy” Sexagesima 2026

08. February 2026
Sexagesima
Luke 8:4–15

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God… the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. (Lk 8:11–15).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

The Word of God is not an idea. The Word of God is a Person. Before the sower ever goes out to sow, the eternal Son is already the Word—“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). And when He comes among us, He comes as more than a voice from heaven. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). So when Jesus says, “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11), He is not describing religious ideas being scattered over human hearts. He is speaking about Himself, the living Word, coming to you by preaching, coming to be received or refused, coming to give what only He can give.

That changes the whole hear-and-soil picture. This is not merely about how you handle spiritual teaching. This is what happens when Christ comes near. The sower sows Christ. Not as a vague spiritual ideas, not as moral improvement, not as motivational advice. He sows the Gospel: Christ for sinners. Christ crucified. Christ given. Christ placed into ears, and thereby into the heart, as gift. And it is the Gospel that bears fruit.

Isaiah already trains us to think this way: God’s Word goes out to accomplish His purpose. It is not empty. It is not tentative. “So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty” (Isaiah 55:11). He teaches you to care not first about your response, but first about God’s action. God speaks and does. He says, and it happens. His Word delivers what it promises because His Word is bound to His Son, and His Son is bound to His cross and resurrection for you.

So we must be careful not to turn this Sunday into a pep talk about becoming better soil. That is the subtle trap that the parable lays. If the point becomes “try harder to listen,” the parable gets converted into law-only self-improvement. And that would be a cruel sermon, because the old Adam will gladly turn “listen better” into a new way of boasting, and the crushed conscience will turn it into despair.

Christ does not tell the parable so that you go home with new spiritual techniques. He tells it so that you recognize the battle over the Gospel, and cling to Him where He gives Himself: in the preached Word. Now listen again to the four hearings, but this time with Christ at the center.

First, the seed on the path. These hear. Christ comes near in preaching. And yet the Word remains on the surface. The Gospel is treated as background noise. Then Jesus names the real thief: “Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved” (Luke 8:12). Notice what the devil is targeting: not your morality, not your general religiosity, but the saving Word—Christ given for sinners. Because this is the one thing that must not be believed. The devil can tolerate all kinds of “spirituality” so long as Christ crucified is not trusted. He steals the Gospel so that they “may not believe and be saved.” That is the first disaster: Christ preached, Christ brushed aside, Christ removed.

Second, the seed on the rock. These receive the Word with joy. They believed for a while. That matters. This is not “fake faith.” It is real hearing, real receiving, real beginning. The Gospel can delight. Forgiveness can bring joy. But Jesus says, “in time of testing fall away” (Luke 8:13). Testing does not merely challenge; it presses hard. Under pressure, the old heart is tempted to trade Christ for something else—approval, comfort, control, a life that feels safer. The Gospel, which once sounded like freedom, begins to sound like a threat because it insists on the cross. It insists that your righteousness is outside you, in Christ alone. It insists that you will not manage your way into glory. And so some quit. Not because Christ failed, but because the heart decided Christ was too costly.

Third, the seed among thorns. Here, the devil’s tactic is slower and frankly more effective in a comfortable culture. The Word is heard. Christ is not openly rejected. Life just becomes full and busy. Jesus says the hearers are “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). The Gospel does not disappear in one dramatic moment. It is crowded out by a thousand ordinary things. Work becomes most important. Worry starts running through the mind. Money starts dictating priorities. Pleasure starts demanding more time. And the fruit does not mature—not because the Gospel lacks power, but because the heart keeps inviting competing masters to wrap their hands around the throat of faith. The Gospel is still true. Christ is still present. But the hearer gradually treats Him as optional.

Now the good soil. Jesus does not define it by natural aptitude, as though some people are born spiritually receptive. He defines it by what happens to the Gospel: “hearing the word, hold it fast” (Luke 8:15). They keep Christ. They keep the Gospel. They do not move on from it. They do not treat it as the starter course before “deeper things.” The deeper thing is always the same: Christ for you. Christ crucified for you. Christ risen for you. Christ preached into you. They hold Him fast when they feel strong and when they feel weak, when life is calm and when it is chaotic. And they bear fruit with patience.

And what is that fruit? It is not your first religious effort. It is Christ’s own life taking shape in you. The fruit is faith that clings to the Gospel. The fruit is confession of Christ when it would be easier to stay quiet. The fruit is love for the neighbor that springs from being forgiven, not love performed to earn forgiveness. The fruit is endurance under the cross, not because you are tough, but because the Gospel keeps giving you Christ when you are not.

This is why Paul belongs with this parable. Paul is not selling spiritual competence, growth, or skill. He is insisting on Christ’s sufficiency. He has a thorn. He asks for relief. The Lord answers not with a technique, but with a Gospel sentence: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In other words, you do not outgrow needing Christ. Weakness does not disqualify you from hearing; weakness is exactly where the Gospel does its sweetest work, because it forces you off your own resources and back onto Christ.

So this Divine Service is not a weekly reminder session. It is not the congregation gathering to get a spiritual tune-up. It is Christ the Word coming to sow Himself again: in Scripture read, in Gospel proclaimed, in Absolution spoken, in preaching that does what preaching is meant to do—deliver Christ. The Service is so Word-heavy because Christ is generous, because He keeps coming, because He knows how quickly the seed gets stolen, scorched, and choked. He keeps sowing because He intends to save.

And Isaiah’s promise is not small. When the Word accomplishes what God purposes, the result is not a “better religious life.” It is joy and peace. It is creation itself being moved toward restoration. “You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace” (Isaiah 55:12). That is Gospel fruit: sinners who were trapped in guilt and fear being led out by Christ’s forgiveness into peace with God.

So hear the parable as Christ intends it. It is a warning, yes—but the warning is in service of the gift. The point is not to leave you staring inward, anxiously measuring your soil quality. The point is to drive you to the only safe thing: Christ as He comes to you in His Gospel. Because the seed that bears fruit is not your effort. The seed is the Gospel. The sower is Christ. And the harvest is Christ’s doing from first to last.

Which is why you can pray, without pretending: “Lord, keep me. Guard me. Root me. Clear the thorns. Shut the devil’s mouth. Give me ears.” And you can trust that prayer because the One who sows is the One who died for you, the One who rose for you, and the One who keeps coming to you with His own saving Word.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin