The Seed of a Woman

A Seed

Wheat, rice, corn barley,; red, pinto, navy, black, garbanzo beans; walnut, pistachio, pecan, almond, brazil, macadamia nuts; flower, pine, grass, seeds. These all have in common the life they contain. Each, in its difference from the others, carries a spark of life within it, which, in just the right circumstances, initiates life like itself. Each is a perfect package of the possible: packaging, germ of life and food source for its germination. It would be like ordering a Big Mac and having the burger consume the packaging in order to create more Big Macs. In some of these tiny packets the next generation is visible in embryonic form.

An Experiment for the Kids Among Us

Take some larger bean like a red or lima bean. Soak it over-night, then peel off the skin (package). Gently twist the halves until they break apart. Looking carefully, at one end of one of the halves, a tiny structure is visible. Use a hand-held magnifying glass and you will see two "leaves" called cotyledons and a tiny root branching off from the leaves. If you happen to have some iodine laying around, touch the half of the seed containing the embryonic plant. The nutrient part of the seed will stain a darker color and the plant will stand out even more clearly.

If you leave a bean in a warm, damp environment like a damp paper towel for a few days, you will see, on opening the seed, a well-developed pair of leaves and root. Longer patience will make the growth even more evident. If you plant a bean and take it out of the soil a week or so down the road, you will find the bean attached to the joining of the root and stalk of the new bean plant. It is noticeably smaller, shrunken because it is pouring its nutrients into the new plant. Later, all that will be left is an empty sack which eventually falls away leaving only a tiny scar to mark the spot where it emptied itself into that which grew from within it.

The Seed of a Woman

In 1926, a scientist finally isolated and described the human ovum. One-hundred two years before that, the first mammalian ovum was described. For all history before that, it was assumed that procreation consisted of implanting a seed which grew into an adult. The implanted seed, it was assumed, merely needed a hospitable "soil" into which to fall in order to grow from its "little person" status, into a human infant. Even in scripture, except for the verse discussed below, women are blamed for infertility: Sarah shared the burden of the appellation “barren” with Rachel, Hannah and Elizabeth, future mother of John the Baptist. It is as if, speaking of a field which has depleted soil or has been sown with salt-it is barren, unproductive, unfruitful. Of course, today, we know that infertility cuts both ways-probably at least 50% of infertility is on the male side.

The belief that the male semen contains the whole human is the basis for all earth-worship religions. Many 21st-century Americans have returned to the recognition of Gaia, otherwise known as Mother Earth or the Earth Mother. It's seems logical: take a corn seed, toss it into the soil and it grows into a seed-bearing corn plant. The only exception to this ancient universal understanding of this view of conception is a single verse in the book of Genesis. In it, Moses used the phrase, "the seed of a woman," to say that our Lord Jesus would be born into this world as a human.
In this single verse, a secret is revealed and a mystery set forth: an unfertilized ovum leads to a virgin birth, resulting in a human child. Human yet God, fully man, fully God; mystery indeed.

The Seed

God's promise to Abraham was that, "All nations will be blessed by the seed." Paul is careful to point out that the word "seed" is singular, not plural. He wants us to understand that there is a particular "seed" "The Seed," which will be the blessing, not the whole of the generations which came from Abraham. So, we have a Seed born of the seed of a woman, without the seed of a man, who is to bless all nations.
Jesus says, referring to Himself, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground, and dies, it abides alone. But if it falls into the ground and dies, it will produce a hundred fold." Jesus, The Seed, fell into the ground and died. Like a seed, he poured out His life into His Body, the Church; like a seed, He gave all; like a seed, all that was left were scars. In His death, His life became the life that is ours; like a seed, He withered to nothing-bruised and afflicted. Like a seed, He rose again, producing the church, His body of which we are a part.

In Him was life; our life; the life of the increase of the Seed.

3 19 2010