Easter Sunday, March 31st: "Gardener"

 

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First United Presbyterian Church

“Gardener”

Rev. Amy Morgan

March 31, 2024

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

“It begins, as it will end, with a garden.” In “Good Omens,” the series a group of us watched and discussed together through Lent, the voice of God begins narrating the story with these words. But she could also have been narrating the actual story of the Bible. It begins in the garden of Eden, and it ends with the tree of life, originally planted in Eden, now growing by the river of the water of life at the end of John’s Revelation. 

The Bible is filled with gardens. Queen Esther saved the Jewish people in a garden. Sensual garden imagery is found throughout the Song of Songs. The prophets talk about gardens withering and thriving as a metaphor for Israel. Paul described the Corinthian church as something he planted and God grew. And Jesus uses gardening quite a lot in his parables. 

So perhaps Mary wasn’t mistaken when she thought the risen Jesus was a gardener. Perhaps, in his resurrected body, she recognized him for who he really is. 

Throughout the gospels, people confused Jesus with many things. One of the central questions of the gospels is Jesus asking, “Who do you say that I am?” People think he is a prophet, maybe even the reincarnation of Elijah or John the Baptist. But folks in his hometown declare he is just “Joseph’s son.” When he walks on water through a storm, his disciples think he is a ghost. Peter eventually declares he is the Messiah. He is sarcastically labeled “King of the Jews” at his execution. 

But the Gospel of John depicts Jesus as a gardener from beginning to end. 

The opening words of John’s Gospel, “In the beginning,” draw a very intentional connection to the opening words of the Genesis garden story. John casts Jesus as a gardener through whom everything grows, claiming “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” Jesus the gardener is contrasted with Adam the gardener, who failed to follow God’s gardening instructions. John writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that we will see Jesus putting his hands in the dirt with us as the “second Adam,” the human who will tend the garden faithfully and empower us to participate in God’s new, redeemed creation. 

So, in a sense, John’s gospel begins in a garden, taking us back to the garden of creation. But there are other gardens in John’s gospel. Jesus prays in a garden while his disciples sleep. Jesus is betrayed by one of his closest friends and arrested on false charges in a garden. And finally, in a garden, Jesus is crucified and buried. 

Mary Magdelene came to that garden in the darkness of the first day of the week, watering the earth with her tears. She wept in the company of others who mourned the world’s cruelty. The woman who wept at Jesus’s feet, anointing them with her tears and drying them with her hair, had experienced the condemnation of her community. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, realizing the leaders of the religious establishment did not recognize the things that make for peace. Peter wept, acknowledging his own complicity in the world’s cruelty when he denied knowing Jesus. 

Jesus taught his disciples that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” In his death, he was that grain of wheat, a seed buried in the ground. For days, those who knew him and loved him, followed him and trusted him, saw no signs of life. Their hopes had withered on the vine, and all they could do was weep and wait. 

But Jesus also taught that those who weep and mourn are blessed and will be comforted. 

As Mary weeps, the garden around her grows into a place of blessing and comfort when she encounters the resurrected Jesus in all his gardening glory. The tears that have watered this garden grow into the joy of the resurrection. 

And that joy keeps growing. Jesus sends Mary to tell the disciples that he plans to ascend to God. This word for “ascend” in Greek is a combination of the words for “up” and “foot,” basically meaning to climb. But it is also sometimes translated as “grow,” like a climbing vine. Jesus plans to keep growing, and to keep the creation growing, too. Jesus the gardener does not stop tending to the creation at the first sign of new life. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”

Jesus walked through gardens of sorrow, betrayal, and death. But the resurrection of Jesus the gardener assures us that life will come out of death, again and again, forever and ever. The growth of joy can come from the water of our tears. The creation begins in a garden that is beautiful and good, and God’s ultimate desire is for the end of the story to be a garden that is resilient and healing. 

But we must walk through a lot of different gardens between the beginning and the end. We may find ourselves in gardens of sorrow and anguish, gardens of betrayal and hurt, gardens of injustice and death. The gardens of our lives, our community, and our world may wither with neglect, disease, or abuse. 

The 12^th-century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen had a vision of God saying, “With my mouth, I kiss my own chosen creation. I uniquely, lovingly, embrace every image I have made out of the earth’s clay. With a fiery spirit I transform it into a body to serve all the world.” Hildegard, like Mary, recognized Jesus as the gardener. But she also understood that Jesus tends the garden of humanity so that we can grow into “a body to serve all the world.” 

Jesus the gardener is helping us grow into gardeners, too. The creation story in Genesis reminds us that we were created to be gardeners. While we failed to follow God’s gardening instructions, Jesus has come to teach us once again how to tend to the creation and help it thrive. Jesus opens the way for humanity to become faithful co-gardeners, until the creation is so redeemed that rivers can flow and trees can grow in the city of God. 

Not every garden is in bloom all the time. No matter how well we care for a garden, no matter how many hours of back-breaking work, careful watching, mindful pruning we put into it, it will inevitably die.

We may nurture peace, compassion, wholeness, and hope, and we are devastated and maybe even feel personally responsible when they wither and die. When the frosts of resentment and the blazing heat of anger destroy good things we’ve watched grow, it is heartbreaking. 

And when we plant seeds in the ground, we can’t see them growing. We can only watch and wait, and perhaps water them with our tears. We can stand in that long tradition of weeping – with Mary, with Peter, with Jesus. 

But through our tears, perhaps only through the blurred vision of weeping, we can recognize Jesus the gardener. And in recognizing him, the garden of the world around us can grow into a place of blessing and comfort. Our tears that have watered this garden can grow into the joy of resurrection. Our anxious waiting, our heartbreak and shame, are washed away in the peace of the presence of the Gardener. 

Mary Oliver captures the contrast between our anxious concern and God’s gracious gardening in her poem, 

“The Gardener” 

Have I lived enough?

Have I loved enough?

Have I considered Right Action enough, have I

come to any conclusions?

Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?

Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.

Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,

where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,

is tending his children, the roses.

God has been in the business of gardening for a long time. God has seen gardens abused and neglected. God has seen gardens bloom and grow. God knows there is a season for everything, as the wise preacher of Ecclesiastes realized. But God is always tending to the creation, always encouraging growth and nurturing life. Growth may be slow. Life and death may constantly cycle around each other. But in the end, life wins. In the end, the garden thrives. In the end, the gardener keeps on gardening, and encourages us to grow and learn, to grow into “a body to serve all the world.” 

As that body, may we faithfully tend to the gardens of the world. May we sow seeds of love and pull weeds of hatred. May we water trees of healing and eradicate disease, poverty, and violence. May we nurture hope and trust and quell the growth of despair and doubt. 

With Jesus the Gardener working alongside us, guiding and encouraging us, may we believe that gardens that have died can be brought back to life. May we remember that it began, as it will end, with a garden. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.