“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.” (John 19:41)
It’s fitting that Jesus was buried and rose from the dead in a garden, now known as the Garden Tomb in Jersualem.
“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for Him there.” (George Bernard Shaw)
From Eden to Easter, gardens play a prominent role in God’s plan for the salvation of His people:
When He created Adam and Eve, from whose lineage Jesus would come, He placed them in the Garden of Eden; Jesus was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and God completed His plan by raising Jesus from the dead in the Garden Tomb.
It’s no wonder that “we’re closer to God in a garden than any other place on earth.” (Anon)
The garden has its “roots” in the basic human impulse to carve out a portion of the landscape and distinguish it from ordinary places. Its sacred import derives from the Indo-European word "sak," which means to separate, demarcate or divide. Sacred’s opposite is not secular, but the ordinary, from which it is set apart. While a garden’s components – rocks, walls, fences and ditches — are secular, it is their usefulness in setting apart that contributes to the sacred.
The term “Eden” still connotes harmony, innocence and unbroken communication with God; a paradise; pure delight.
It is in this context that Austin Miles wrote his famous hymn:
“I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own.
And the joys we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known."
Miles was describing Mary Magdalene’s encounter in the garden with her risen Lord, whom she initially mistakes for the gardener, after finding the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.
Miles intends for us to understand her encounter as one that can be experienced by anyone who meets Jesus in the daily comings and goings – the “gardens” of their lives.
“One day in March 1912,” Miles recalls, “I picked up my Bible. It opened to John 20 – the meeting of Jesus and Mary in the garden. As I read, I became part of the scene, a silent observer to the moment when Mary knelt before her Lord. Inspired by the vision, I wrote the words of the poem, and that evening composed the music.” (Forty Gospel Hymns, Sanville)
Mary Magdalene would have stayed with her Lord in the garden, but Jesus bade her to go and tell the others that He was alive:
“I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.”
Amazingly, Jesus craves our affection and connection. He seeks our friendship, though it is unlike any other and should not be taken lightly.* In His presence, our sorrows turn into joy. We, like Mary, would stay with Him forever, but He bids us to go, take up the burdens of life, and tell others about Him, with the Easter promise that this life is not the end. Because He lives, we too will live with Him forever.
*In The Chronicles of Narnia, a series set in a magical realm featuring talking animals, mythical beasts and Christian themes, C.S. Lewis describes a meeting taking place between protagonists Lucy and Susan and the lion, Aslan, the God-figure in the novel: “Ooh,” says Susan, “I’d thought he {Aslan} was a man. Is He safe then? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will dearie, and make no mistake,” replied Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just plain silly.”
