We are all familiar with the Bible’s story of
humanity’s beginning in the Garden of Eden.
God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden with the
instruction not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil les they
die. God would also come around daily in
the cool of the evening to visit with them.
It’s a very idyllic scene of unhindered fellowship between God and
us. But then, a serpent tricks Eve into
eating the fruit and brutish and dull Adam joins her. They suddenly loose their innocence, become
ashamed, and begin to hide from God.
When God comes to visit that evening he discovers what they had done and
banishes them from Eden lest they also eat of the Tree of Life and their
diseased state go on forever.
Among the consequences of their actions are death and
the loss of face-to-face, daily fellowship with God ended. Their relationship with the LORD God is
distant and they no longer meet with him face to face. Their own relationship becomes strained with
a lack of equality. Eve has pain in
childbirth. Adam must toil at his
work. And most traumatic of all, this
spiritual disease they now have, which we call Sin, passes to the next
generation and becomes all the more vile.
Their oldest son Cain murders their youngest Son, Abel, over a religious
dispute. The murdering continues into
the next generations and they start to build those dastardly cities.
That’s the beginning of humanity’s story in and out
of the Garden of Eden. In John’s Gospel,
the way John tells the story of Jesus he reverses all this. He claims humanity has had a new beginning in
Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and also there is a return to Eden.
Towards the end of John’s Gospel we find Jesus and
his disciples spending a lot of time in the Garden of Gethsemane, time
reminiscent of the unhindered fellowship that Eve and Adam spent with God in
Eden in the cool of the evening. This
Garden fellowship abruptly ends when Judas the betrayer brings the Temple
police and a Roman cohort to arrest Jesus.
This time the banishment is dramatically different for now. This time it is humanity banishing God from
the Garden and condemning God to death. The
powers of evil embodied in a collusion of religious authority and empire
crucify Jesus at the execution grounds just outside the walls of the “Holy
City” of Jerusalem. Then two secret
disciples of Jesus from among the wealthy religious elite do right by him and
take and bury his body in a Garden tomb.
Is this the end of God and his Garden?
Has sin-diseased humanity finally done its worst?
(I’m sure the science fiction writers who first heard
John’s Gospel are expecting a Black Hole to open in the tomb and all of
creation to start spiralling in towards it’s ultimate and final destruction.)
Well, that’s Friday.
Then there’s Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the day of rest. Jesus’ body lies dead in the tomb. Our confessions state that he descended into
Hell to proclaim release to the captives there.
Then, Sunday morning comes.
Sunday in the early church was called the Eighth Day, the first day of
the New Creation. On this day, as Paul
says it in first few verses of Romans, God the Father publically declared Jesus
to be the Son of God in accordance with the Holy Spirit by raising him from the
dead in that Garden Tomb.
Early that morning Mary Magdalene who obviously held
great affection for Jesus goes to the tomb.
(It’s okay to think about Eve here)
She finds the stone rolled away. Not
looking in and fearing the worst she runs and gets Peter and the beloved
disciple (could be either John or Lazarus).
They sprint back to the Garden Tomb to find it empty with the burial
linens lying about and the head cloth placed rather neatly aside. Not knowing what to think the two men leave
the Garden and go home. (It’s okay to
think dull Adam here.)
Yet, Mary, a very distraught Mary, (unlike Adam and
Eve hiding in shame) stays behind in the Garden and is weeping near
inconsolably. Then a man whom she thinks
is the Gardener comes and tries to console her.
She explains and pleads if he might know where Jesus’ body might
be. The Gardener calls her by name. “Mary!”
She realizes it is Jesus and calls him by what was probably her pet name
for her beloved Rabbi. “Rabouni!” Fellowship between God and humanity is
restored. Mary, symbolic of Christian
fellowship, the new Eve and Jesus the New Adam have returned humanity to Eden.
Jesus tells her not to cling to him because he had
yet to ascend and be enthroned as Lord at the right hand of the Father, but to
go and tell the others. This she
does. She goes and tells them, “I have
seen the Lord.” I like how the Greek
sounds here. “Heoraka ton Kurion!” It’s kind of like “Eureka!” It means she literally had seen him. It was not some sort of mystical experience.
What does this mean for us? Jesus’ disciples (that includes us) gathered
for prayer and study, worship and fellowship are now where Eden can be
found. When we gather, the LORD God is
walking in our midst in the cool of the evening. Personal devotion time is also time spent
face-to-face with the LORD God in the Garden.
In fact Garden fellowship with the LORD God can be anytime and
anywhere. But, we aren’t meant to simply
tarry in the Garden. Like Mary, we are
not to cling to him. We who have seen
the Lord bear the onus to go and tell others that the Garden is now open. Especially we are to proclaim that Jesus is
indeed Lord. Idolatry, Empire, and Death
are now his captives. Amen.
