Gardeners

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

April 20, 2014

Year A: Easter Day

Jeremiah 31:1-6

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Acts 10:34-43

John 20:1-18

Gardeners

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            We have endured a long, cold, hard winter. We wondered if it would ever end. We wondered if spring would ever arrive. We wondered if we would ever see new life sprouting in the garden.

            But, we didn’t lose faith.

            Here at St. Paul’s our faithful band of gardeners have been planning and preparing. Some have been nurturing seeds in their homes on windowsills, waiting for the day…waiting for the day when new life could take root in our once frozen and inhospitable soil.

            And now that day has finally arrived. Our gardeners have been out working in that fertile Jersey City earth and new life is sprouting and blooming all around us.

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            And, actually, long ago our story began in a garden, didn’t it?

            Our story began in a garden – a beautiful garden given to us by God – given for our enjoyment and our use… and our care.

            But, we messed up like we usually do.

            God came looking for us in the garden, calling out, “Where are you?”

            But, out of shame and fear, we hid from God.

            And in some ways we’ve never really stopped hiding from God.

            But, fortunately, God never stopped looking for us, never stopped calling out to us, “Where are you?”

            And finally God revealed God’s Self to us in the life, death and, yes, the resurrection of Jesus.

            We saw what God is really like in this perfect life of healing, prayer, teaching, service, sacrifice…love.

            But just like in that first garden, we messed up again – in a really big way.

            In another garden Jesus was arrested, setting in motion a chain of events leading to the brutality of the Cross. God came into the world and people just like us rejected him and crucified him.

            Dying on the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.”

            And in one sense it was finished. Jesus had completed his mission, had given all he could give, had finished his life of loving service.

            But, in another sense, it wasn’t finished at all. It was just beginning.

            And so on Easter morning, we find ourselves in yet another garden – a garden that Mary Magdalene thought of as a cemetery, a place of death and grief and decay.

            But, the Good News, the best news of all time, is that God still didn’t give up on us.

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            If you’ve been in church during recent Sundays we’ve heard some examples of misunderstandings in the Gospel of John. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again and Nicodemus wonders how he’s supposed to get back into his mother’s womb. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that he has living water that will quench her thirst forever and she notes that this is pretty big talk for a guy with no bucket.

            And now today back in the garden, we have one more misunderstanding.             

            After discovering the empty tomb and running to tell the disciples, Mary Magdalene returns to the garden. We don’t know why she’s back. Maybe she doesn’t know where else to go. Maybe she wants to see the empty tomb again. Maybe she doesn’t believe her own eyes.

            Mary Magdalene is back in the garden weeping.

            She’s weeping over the sadness and horror of it all: the betrayal, the rejection, the death and now the final indignity of a stolen body.

            Mary is weeping when the angels appear in the tomb.

            And she is weeping when the Risen Christ calls to her,

            “Woman, why are you weeping?”

            Maybe because of her tears, or maybe because she wasn’t expecting to see him, or because he was already somehow different, Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus. Instead, there’s one last misunderstanding. 

            We’re told she supposes Jesus to be the gardener.

            “Mary!”

            “Rabbouni!”

            Except, this time it’s not really a misunderstanding, is it?

            Mary’s wrong but she’s right.

            Jesus is the gardener, nurturing new life where before there was only death and decay.

            And once she realizes that it’s Jesus there with her in the garden, what does Mary Magdalene do?

            In a way, she gets started on the gardening, going back to the disciples and announcing, “I have seen the Lord.”

            And then the first disciples and the generations that followed did their part tending God’s garden, tilling often rocky and even dangerous soil, sharing in words and through their lives the Good News – the best news ever – the news that, no matter what, God doesn’t give up on us.

            And now it’s our turn to work in God’s garden.

            It’s been a long, cold, hard winter and the garden needs a lot of work – God’s garden needs us.

            There’s no time to waste.

            So, like Mary Magdalene, let’s get started right away.

            Let’s go tell people the good news – the best news ever:

            Alleluia! Christ is risen!

            The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

            Amen.