Be Fruitful & Multiply
*This is a transcript from Chapter 9 of A Grafting Story Podcast
It’s the first day of Advent - December 1st, which throughout Christendom is the beginning of the journey to the manger, at least in our reflective church calendar. It’s the day we start reading the Christmas story, again being ushered into the mystery in Mary’s womb. It’s the season of Immanuel, God with us - born to us as a child. In many ways, it’s a culmination of so much of what we’ve been learning about together (in A Grafting Story Podcast). The glory at the beginning of time, both wild life and human life being planted and blessed by God, the master Gardener. The seed of promise given to Eve, which would grow up and be given to us in Christ Jesus. And then that seed of salvation planted and grown up in us through the Holy Spirit, destined to do exactly what God planned for us from the start:
to be fruitful, and to multiply.
When we first hear this phrase in Genesis - it refers to God’s directives to creation. How part of our (and creation’s) very DNA is to replicate. And while the very basic understanding of this scripture would be simply to include procreation, whether sexual for mammals or asexual for some plants and subspecies, when considered together with the horticultural metaphors that follow, we come to know this command as one that continues to blossom the more we meditate on it. My daughter has a prophetic and poetic mind - she has always been wiser than her developmental years and consistently challenges me to attempt to explain complex theology in the simplest forms (one of a teacher’s greatest gifts). One night in bed she asked me without hesitation: “Mamma, why would God make us? If he is three in one, and doesn’t need us, why would he make us at all?” After a long pause, breathing in the wonder of it, and the fear of it, the Holy Spirit delivered me.
“My girl, God is love. And love is made to multiply.”
We spent the next ten minutes thinking about all the ways we give away love, only for it to somehow grow all the more. How the very way love is in it’s form and function, destines it for more. Remember that word, fecundity? The capacity for abundant growth? Love has more fecundity than can be measured. That’s why the measurements of “more than” or “same as” or “less than” when it comes to love cannot compute, because there is always more, and it can never be measured. And one might think that love - being precious and invaluable - would need to be hoarded and walled up to be protected. But it is love vulnerable - in a manger, and on a cross - love laid down, and given up freely, that gives it power and strength. God had to make us, because love multiplies. The seed had to be planted, because love is meant to be fruitful. And whatever our families and the churches that bare His family name look like, our commissioning that comes in Matthew 28, where Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” is just a rephrasing of our creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply - it’s just that now, we have the right vine to be connected to, in order to actually make it happen - not just in this life, but in the one that lasts forever.
It is so like God to make His story cyclical and whole. We are formed in Him, and then He is formed in us. As he adopts us into His family as children, the Spirit of sonship gets conceived in us so Jesus can be born again and again into a world that needs to know Him. One of the things I never mentioned a few weeks ago when we talked about the Spirit of Sonship, was some of the details of the inheritance of the firstborn son. In Deuteronomy 21, amidst all of the very detailed rules and regulations put in place for Israel to worship God, you come across a passage on the rights of the firstborn son: A double portion of the inheritance. Twice the blessing of land, livestock, authority, power and esteem. This is the same double portion - or blessing - also given to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, and what is then returned to Job to amend to all of his suffering. Now, just like metaphors are important in scripture, numbers are too. Just take an interesting trip through the Bible by studying numbers like 3, 7, 12 or 40. It will light up the complexity of scripture and the mind of God like you have never seen. So double - or twice the amount - is important. It doesn’t just mean literally twice the amount of inheritance, but scholars believe it symbolizes the great generosity of God. So when Elijah blesses Elisha in 2 Kings 2, asking God for a “double portion” of His spirit to rest upon Him, or when God promises Israel in Exodus that He will give them twice the amount of bread on the sixth day so that they will eat abundantly on the seventh, it’s a promise that we will be well-taken care of by a generous God who loves to give of Himself. It makes it all the more powerful, thinking of Jesus, and His rightful double portion - both of the spirit of God and the inheritance of God, which He freely pours out on us.
It’s important to note that a double blessing for the firstborn, this multiplication of generous love, often comes after great despair. Love multiplied, and love fruitful are often born and grown in difficult places. God’s goodness isn’t offered to the good seed, His goodness is the good soil that makes broken seeds flourish. The double portion is given in Isaiah 61 to replace: shame and disgrace, devastation and ruin, so that, “everlasting joy can be ours.” Verse 10 says, “ just as the soil makes the sprout come up, and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”
Many years ago God planted a seed in mine and my husband’s hearts - at different times, through different methods, but that whisper of love began to grow. We have watered it, and tended to it. We have tilled the soil, staring down at empty garden beds and frost-covered clearings. We have believed that there was miraculous working under the dirt, beyond what we could see, and that God was going to make love do what He promised it was meant to do. In an unexpected year of great devastation and ruin worldwide, in the middle of a family story that has chapters of shame and disgrace, a double portion has been given, to us.
Our family has just welcomed not one, but two precious children.
I still laugh in glorious amazement at the sheer generosity of His love shown to each one of us in this party of now-five. My daughter has been praying for 2 siblings for just over a year now, and after sharing the news with her, she exclaimed, “God heard my prayer!” He is multiplying fruit everywhere. It has been a wild time - going from one to three, and while I can’t go into all the details of this ever-evolving story right now in this moment, I can tell you that we are delirious with joy. Exhausted, emotionally and physically - still wrapped with bandages as we await the fusion of branch to stem - the attachment that solidifies the careful graft, which promises to make us all more fruitful.
So we would appreciate your prayers as we welcome our newest additions, and continue pursuing God’s heart and wisdom for how to take each next step before us. Many have gone ahead, and we are continuing to learn from them. These are not stories in pages of fiction. These are lives, created and consecrated, protected and honoured by a parent-God who desires life to the fullest, for sake of His great name. As I sit here tonight writing this while three children sleep (I hope) soundly, as I have much to rejoice over, and faith that has sprung up times two in my soul, I pray this over you in closing: May God’s generous love shown to you through Jesus become all the more fruitful in you by the spirit. Would He multiply in your soul, your families and your communities a double portion of all the abundance He delights to give. Amen.