Jesus is the Gardener

John 20:1-18

1 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. 2 So 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.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then 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, 12 and 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. 13 They 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.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” 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.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch 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.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Early in the morning, Mary went to the tomb.  We don’t know why she went.  It may have been because she recalled something Jesus had said about rising on the third day - though the impression is that everyone struggled to recall what Jesus had said would happen.  She may have gone simply because she didn’t know what else to do, desperately trying to close the apparently infinite gap that had opened up between her and Jesus.  The man who had been her salvation was dead.  His grave is as close as you can get now.  

When she arrived she found the stone rolled away, and rather than investigating further, she immediately ran to tell the disciples.  Upon hearing her report, Simon Peter and “the other disciple” ran the other way back to the tomb.  This other disciple is pretty clearly John, the presumed author of the Gospel, and he includes the nice little detail that he’s faster than Peter.  Even so, it was Peter who first entered the tomb and found the burial cloths neatly folded.  He saw and believed, as did John himself - though they hadn’t yet understood that Scripture foretold this.  Then they go home, which seems like a pretty uninspired choice.

Mary hangs around, not quite ready to let go, still trying to make sense of the empty tomb.  She suddenly sees two angels sitting where Jesus had lain, though it’ seems she doesn’t register that she’s talking to angels.  They ask why she’s weeping and through her sobs she says,  “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  It’s not clear who this “they” is, but presumably Mary isn’t operating with the assumption that Jesus is risen.  It’s almost as if she and the other two disciples never exchanged a word.  

She immediately turns to find Jesus standing before her - only she doe not recognize him.  The Gospel seems to want to emphasize that even the eyewitness to these things didn’t entirely have their eyes open, that there was yet more to be reveled in order for them to behold the truth in full.  So it ever was.  

We’ve seen over the past several weeks how all kinds of people who encounter Jesus in the Gospels suffer various kinds of misunderstandings.  The woman at the well, when Jesus offered her living water, wanted to know where was his bucket?  Then, when Jesus declares that he has for they do not know about, the disciples start trying to locate his secret stash.  They take literally what he means figuratively.  

Last Sunday we saw a deeply ironic, even tragic, misunderstanding, as the crowds rightly shout Hosanna and declare Jesus king even as they do not know what these words really mean.  He is the king, the one who saves, but not at all as they expected.

Here we are told a lovely little detail: Mary assumes that Jesus, even as he asks her why she is weeping, is the gardener.   There is something almost comical in her failing to see who it is that’s in front of her, getting his identity so badly wrong.  But the irony here is that, though she doesn’t know of what she speaks, she is right: Jesus is the gardener.   

In the beginning God created humanity and placed them in a garden, where they enjoyed perfect peace with one another and with God.  Soon, however, Adam and Eve, following the temptation of the serpent and the desires of their own hearts, disobeyed God’s only rule, ate of the fruit of the tree, were cast out of the Garden and found themselves subject to the power of death.  

In the very final chapter, the book of Revelation envisions another tree, the Tree of Life, which produces good fruit, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and there will be the throne of God and of the Lamb who was slain.  “And there will be no more might; they need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever.”  

The story begins in a garden, and the story ends in a new garden - or perhaps better, in a garden restored.  Creation becomes new creation.  What was lost has been found, what was corrupted has been redeemed, what was dead has been made alive, forever and ever.  

The pivotal moment in this drama took place in another garden, in Gethsemane, as Jesus went to pray alone, knowing full well what lay before him, in anguish his sweat became like drops of blood.  He prayed the Father might remove this cup, this fate, “Yet not my will but yours be done”.  And so Jesus was faithful, and it was his absolute faithfulness, even unto death, that defeated the powers of sin and death.  And it was that same garden that Jesus was betrayed, handed over to the authorities.  

On that first Easter morning, Jesus rises as the first fruit of the new creation, the old age is passing away, behold a new age has come. He is indeed the gardener, his labor transforming the corrupted Eden out of which we’d be exiled into a new garden in which we will dwell with the God forever.   The tree of the knowledge of good evil is replaced by the tree of life by way of another tree, the cross.  

————

Mary cannot recognize Jesus because, though still himself, he is part of the new creation, he has been transfigured, born anew, born from above.  When Jesus says her name, she recognizes him and rushes to embrace him.  But Jesus has a strange reaction; he tells her not to touch him for he has not yet ascended (This is depicted in the image on the front of the order of worship).    Jesus cannot stay, she cannot quite grasp him, but he will come again.  

This is the prolonged moment in which we’ve been living for some time now: The old age is passing away, the new age is coming.  And yet, of course, although we declare that the powers of sin and death have been defeated, we do not yet live in a world in which the garden of death has become the garden of life.  Death and decay, though their days are numbered, remain in effect.  Like Mary, we want to hold on to Jesus but he has departed for reasons no clearer to her than to us.  

It’s perhaps easier to believe - or at least tell yourself you believe - that God did this thing in the distant past than it is to believe that God is working now, but the promise of Easter is not just that Christ rose from the dead some two thousand years ago, but that Christ is making all things new, that the gardener is tilling the soil, that the vines are being pruned, that the new green shoots are going to appear soon, that the kingdom is coming on earth as it is heaven.  

To have Easter faith is to trust that Jesus the Gardener is going to remake this garden  Cliche as it may be, we need only look around at the flowers blooming, the whole world returning to green, to see that new life reliably arrives.  All of creation will be reborn.  Jesus himself is the first fruit of that new creation.  He’s already transformed the cross into something beautiful, and he can and will do that anything and everything.  

And that includes us. Easter faith also declares that the gardener wishes to till the soil and prune the lifeless branches in our lives.  It is to believe that what is old and dead can be renewed, even resurrected, that the power of sin and death no longer needs to hold sway over us.