In the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, one not-named but ever-present element is an invisible one: Breath. That is—speaking literally in terms of the parables—carbon dioxide.
The air that we breathe out is the air that plants “breathe in.” Once the seed has begun to take root, and the first tiny little shot of green peeks through the soil, the plant begins to take in carbon dioxide. That—mixed, of course, with water, sunlight, and other nutrients from the soil—is what keeps the plant alive. Makes it grow. Enables it to eventually bear fruit.
In the baking process, the way that yeast causes the dough to rise is by producing carbon dioxide. That’s what the tiny bubbles are filled with in the early stages of activating the yeast. What the yeast “breathes out,” simply because it is alive and active, gets trapped in the gluten that was formed during the kneading. And thus the loaf lifts.
In both of these natural processes, carbon dioxide is converted into energy which causes growth—which causes the thing to become what it was always destined to become: A fully grown tree. A fully baked loaf.
Or even a fully mature human human being.
Can you hear the echoes of breath in the Scriptures? God breathed his very breath into his human image. The very Spirit of God is called “breath” (ruach in Hebrew). Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
The way the kingdom comes is by breathing the very life of God into our lungs.
