Mark 4:26-34

Glimpses of God’s Kingdom

In these parables, Jesus provides two glimpses of God’s Kingdom: the slow growth of a seed into a stalk of wheat and the growth of a humble mustard seed. Both of Jesus’ parables in Mark 4:26-34 mean to reinforce the same idea of the nature of the Kingdom: God’s work is often unassuming, slow, and quiet but yields unthinkably grand results. 

In their immediate context within Mark, one has to read these two parables as the response to the parable of the sower (4:1-9) and the explanation of the parable to the disciples thereafter (4:10-20). While the parable of the sower helps the crowds and the disciples consider our reception of God’s Kingdom, Jesus immediately begins orienting their expectations of the inauguration of that…