The Gardener

By Jerry D. Ousley

            Early morning in the garden.  A lone woman, weeping, sobbing with great sadness peered into the empty tomb.  As she did, she saw two men, clothed in the whitest garments she had ever remembered seeing.  Unbeknown to her at first, the two men were angels.  One sat at the head of where Jesus had lain, while the other sat where His feet would have been.  “Why do you weep?” they asked her.  “Because they have taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have lain Him.”

            Only two days before He had been mercilessly beaten and crucified.  Joseph of Arimathea had secured His body, prepared Him and placed Him in the tomb he had fixed for himself.  On the third day, the great stone that had been rolled over the entrance had been miraculously moved out of the way and Jesus arose from the grave to defeat death.  But Mary Magdalene didn’t know anything about all of this.  She only knew that her Lord and Master, Who had cast demons from her and marvelously saved her life, had been taken away.  So, she grieved.

            After speaking to the angels inside the tomb, she turned around and there stood a man whom she assumed was the caretaker of the garden where the tomb was.  “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you seeking?”  These were probably the two most important questions she had ever been asked in her life.  Her only response was, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”  The Gardner said, “Mary.”  When He spoke her name, her eyes were opened and she was standing before her very Lord! Sadness now turned to ecstatic joy, she ran to the apostles with the greatest of news!  (You can read the entirety of this account in John 20:11-18).

            There are several gardens mentioned in the Gospel accounts, but there are two in the Bible that are the most significant, and Jesus is the Gardner of both.  The first is that called Eden.  God placed the first couple, Adam and Eve, in this garden to dress it, keep it and populate it.  I want to take just a moment to clarify.  It was in Eden that Adam and Eve sinned against God.  He had made two trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life.  They were told to not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The fruit was not an apple.  It was a fruit unique to this tree.  Some believe that the fruit was sex.  It was not sex because God had told them to be fruitful and multiply.  It was a unique fruit that only this tree bare.  They ate it out of sin, against what God had told them.  The devil, in the form of the serpent, tempted Eve who then tempted Adam.  But they had themselves to blame.  It wasn’t all Eve’s fault.

            They were expelled from the Garden of Eden to keep them from eating from the Tree of Life.  You see, they received the knowledge of good and evil after eating the fruit, but tainted from the side of evil because of their sin against God.  Had they then eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have been sealed forever in sin.  God was being merciful to expel them from Eden.

            Jesus, being the Word, the incarnate of God, God in the flesh, was present and with the Father, even then had a plan to redeem man and save him from the sin-plight he had created for himself.

            In this second garden, Jesus had died to pay the penalty for man’s sin – a sinless life sacrificed for the sin of the world.  John the Baptist had proclaimed Him to be “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  Sin now paid for, Jesus arose from the grave thus conquering death and the grave.  Once again, the Gardner has brought forth the crop needed most in our lives.

            It is a free gift.  But as with any gift, we have to receive it.  When we do, then He has become our Redeemer.  He has bought us back from the curse of certain destruction.  He has saved us.

            Our lives are a garden.  In them grows all kinds of things.  Without Christ, our garden if full of weeds and evil things, placed there by the false gardener.  The devil wants our lives confused, messed up, tragically lost.  But all we must do is turn to the true Gardener.  Jesus Christ wants to give us the free gift He has bought and paid for with His very life.

            Which garden to you want to live in?  it is indeed the most important question that will ever be posed to you.  You can choose to disbelieve and continue on in the messed-up garden of weeds you now live.  You can say that you don’t believe and continue on.  Or you can choose the good garden.  The one where the Gardener that really loves you abides, and works to make life better.  The choice is entirely yours.  But the choice is literally daisies and lilies or weeds and thistles.  Somebody got a hoe? 

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.?  Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.