John 20:1-18

This text is used for the Lectionary Year C on March 27, 2016.

Hermano Leon
Hermano Leon

Gardens are important, crucial even, to the flow of the grand biblical narrative.  The Bible opens in a garden, with God making all things bright and beautiful.  At the end of every day, God delights in the goodness of creation.  Of course, the pinnacle of God’s work are human beings, who bear the very image of God.  God, the chief gardener, invites Adam and Eve to join in as God creates and cares for a diversity of plants and animals, all of which are participating in the gift of life. Of course, it’s also in the Garden of Eden that God’s good creation goes terribly wrong.  What began as intimate web of relationships between humans, God, and all creation, turns to fracture and blame.  Where once there was no shame, now people are covering themselves.  Where once there was mutual relationship, now there is hiding in the bushes and the development of power structures.

The biblical canon closes with a garden as well in Revelation 22.  It seems as though the idyllic Eden will return, with the Gardener as its central focus.  All will be prayer and praise.  Everything will live in shalom.  What’s broken will be mended.  What’s lost will be found.  What’s wrong will be righted.  Paradise will be restored.

As John 20 opens, the reader discovers another garden, no less significant than those already mentioned.  The story begins in the early morning darkness.  Given the Johannine emphasis on light and darkness imagery, the preacher should probe for the full measure of meaning here.  Mary Magdalene is in the garden after a horrendous weekend, illustrative of the world’s worst behaviors, power structures, and attitudes.  She came in the dark in more than one way.

The preacher might also want to pause and examine Mary Magdalene’s journey with Jesus.  Her experience has transformed her, from a woman of sketchy character, to the primary herald of resurrection.  Her journey in the garden was no less significant than Saul’s on the Damascus road.

Mary stands outside of the empty tomb weeping.  Easter is about more than an empty tomb.  The sight of Jesus’ empty tomb doesn’t cultivate faith in Mary, but desperation and despondency.  Her first thought is not one of resurrection, but of a stolen body.  There is more to Easter than an empty tomb, as Mary, along with the rest of us, soon discover.

She turns around where she sees a man she believes to be the gardener.  In the resurrection stories throughout the gospels, the resurrected Jesus is typically mistaken for someone more “normal.”  Surely, this opens up for the preacher the opportunity to illustrate how the risen Christ is visible in mundane, daily affairs and people.

Mary believes Jesus to be the gardener until he calls her by name.  “Mary.”  That one word carried with it something of her own crucifixion and resurrection.  That one word at once destroyed her paradigms and energized her imagination.  This text operates at two levels simultaneously:  the macro level of cosmic renewal (the setting of the Garden) and the micro level illustrated by the intensely personal greeting from Jesus (“Mary”).  The power of the resurrection is not ultimately in the empty tomb, which, as Mary’s response indicates, can become rather static and lifeless.  Instead, the power of the resurrection stems from the deeply personal encounter of the risen Christ.  When Jesus calls her by name, her eyes are opened, and she begins living into the impossible possibilities before her.

Jesus’ enigmatic command, “Don’t cling to me,” has produced a myriad of interpretations.  Some scholars hint at the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body.  Perhaps Jesus’ was untouchable after the resurrection.  It seems that a better interpretation is on the metaphorical level.  One might imagine Mary wanting to embrace Jesus in that garden and never let him go. If only she could bottle this garden experience and never leave this perpetual paradise.  But Jesus says to her, “Don’t cling to me.”  We can recognize Jesus, but we cannot control him.  His reach always exceeds our grasp.  He continues to say to us, “Don’t cling to me.”

This scene serves as the impetus for Mary’s announcement to the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”  You can imagine the sheer joy, even though it may be accompanied with perplexity and astonishment.  It is her experience with Jesus, not yet a theology of what resurrection might mean, which captures her.  She cannot fathom the fullness of Jesus’ resurrection.  She cannot plumb the depths of its glory or the magnificence.  She cannot articulate the wonder and awe of her garden encounter.  All she knows is that she has seen Jesus.  In this way, she is not altogether different from the blind man, who when quizzed by the religious authorities on the meaning of his healing, simply confesses, “One thing I know, that though I was blind and now I see” (John 9.25).   Mary’s story is very similar.  So is ours.

When viewed from the vantage point of the grand biblical narrative, this garden story looks backward to Eden, to the beauty of God’s creation and the intimacy of human relationships.  It looks backwards to a God who walks towards Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit, not away from them.  I can even imagine the creator calling their names, as he searches for them amidst the bushes.

The story in John 20 also looks forward to that grand Garden in which God will be our light.  Rivers will flow with the water of life (not just Samaritan wells) and the tree of life will bear its fruit in season and out.  And in the middle of it all will be the One on the throne and the Lamb.

For now, we all stand between those two cosmic gardens, alongside Mary in this garden, while the Gardener calls us by name, inviting us into a life beyond our comprehension.

 

cleggDr. Preston Clegg
Pastor
Second Baptist Church, Little Rock, Arkansas
pclegg@2bclr.com

 

 

Tags: gardens, resurrection, Mary Magdalene, Eden

One comment

  1. Terence Dougherty

    You lit a spark for me (an infamous gospel-hopper), to link this experience to Peter’s offer to build tabernacles at the Mount of Transfiguration. Thank you!

    Terry Dougherty

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