MY PERSONAL REFLECTIONS OF MARY MAGDALENE AT THE GARDEN TOMB
Pastor Christopher Choo
Good Morning Tuesday
MY PERSONAL REFLECTIONS OF MARY MAGDALENE AT THE GARDEN TOMB
"Mary Magdalene turned around and saw Jesus standing there,
but she did not know it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener.”
–John 20:14, 15
“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, not in the cool of the evening, but in the dawn.”
–G.K. Chesterton
The first person to encounter the risen Christ was Mary Magdalene. It happened in a garden. At first Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. A logical mistake. Or a prophetic mistake. Or a beautiful mistake. Or perhaps not a mistake at all.
On Good Friday Jesus was buried in a garden. A garden is a place to cultivate and grow living things. An appropriate place for Jesus to be buried. A few days before his crucifixion Jesus had said, “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
The first seed raised by God in the garden of resurrection became the gardener. When Mary Magdalene “supposed him to be the gardener,” she was exactly right! Jesus is now the gardener of resurrection, cultivating new life in all who believe.
The first Adam was a gardener who failed in his task and the world became a wasteland of war and sin.
But the second Adam will succeed in his task — Christ will restore the ruined garden.
He will handle us like a gardener - tenderly.
Like gardeners, He will handle living things with living hands. Jesus is not afraid to get his hands dirty in the humus of humanity. Such is His love for us.
With Christ as the Gardener of the New Creation, we have a hopeful eschatology.
The gracious intention of the good gardener is always the same: to prepare you to flourish. Jesus says, “every branch of mine that bears fruit is pruned, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2)
So take heart, if you’re in the garden, the Gardener is there.
You may not always recognize Him at first, but he is there. He calls you by name and His desire is for you to flourish. Believe in the gardener…for He risen!
And where He is, there will we be - the future Garden City of the New Jerusalem, the new Heaven on the New Earth.
“On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be there anymore.” –Revelation 22:2, 3
