In The Garden

John 20:1-18

 

In the garden Mary meets Jesus. What a wonderful image. The biblical narrative begins in the garden with Adam and eve and we arrive here at the place where Mary is named by Jesus and she recognises him.

Gardens play an integral role in the this story. The garden on the Mount of Olives where Jesus and his disciples retreat to pray. The same Garden where Judas comes and betrays Jesus. The various gardens and open spaces which play in and out of the Easter panorama. The grotesque garden on Golgotha where Jesus is crucified. And now the garden, the burial place, where Jesus is placed and where he makes his first appearance to Mary.

 

Gardens have always been apart of the Jewish story. The Garden in the two creation stories, the various gardens or timbered places which play apart in the various Old Testament stories. Nature and natural beauty, rugged or otherwise, sit or not from the centre of each story.

 

The incarnation is not just the story of Jesus. It is the indwelling of God in all created subjects and it is appropriate that key stories talk place in gardens, no matter how rustic or ordinary they may be.  The human journey is one in search of Paradise lost, the garden we had but once and lost through our own desire to be the one in charge. Jesus is the fulfilment of that journey, yet it is still a journey – a gift or grace on behalf of  and an act on our behalf

 

Standing outside the empty tomb, still unsure about the suggestions that Jesus is alive, Mary confronts the stranger who joins her. She fails to recognise Jesus but mistakes him for the gardener. When he calls he name she gasps with recognition and drops to his feet.

 

The gardener, what a wonderful image for Jesus and a reconnection with Paradise Lost. Jesus reconnects us to who we were before Adam and Eve became conscious of their ego self and began to live out of illusion and self. Here we have Jesus, the gardener, standing in the space in between heaven and earth and making space for our true self to come alive.

 

Adam and Eve, Mary and Jesus, types of each other at a different place in the story. Adam and Eve self conscious and full of guilt of being found naked and unprepared in the garden Jesus and Mary fully comfortable in a relationship tested by great tragedy and deep love.

 

And it is this relational aspect of the resurrection which is relevant to us today. The difference between Adam and Eve and Jesus and Mary is the innocence and honesty of their relational self-disclosure.

 

We, like Adam and Eve, are conscious of who we are, of the social structures into which we must fit, the consumer mores which drives us to behave in so many ways that go against our essential self. We listen to others and hear things which compel us to condemn ourselves, to strive to be better, to become a new you/me, to find happiness, fulfilment, closure. A journey that never ends.

 

Neither condemns the other. The one for not recognising him and the other for the deep sorrow and darkness she has experienced. There is simply recognition of a relationship, which has survived and will survive forever. There is innocence, a welcoming of the moment in its entirety. Here in the garden all the experiences they have shared, the horror and sorrow of the last few days are gathered up and bundled together as one all empowering experience. 

 

Unlike moderns, this story doesn’t rush for closure, for a moving on from what was painful and unforgettable. Even here they stay in and experience the moment for what it is, the overflowing of longing, hope and presence. Mary is admonished not to hold on too tight or to hang on too long. This, even this, is not the end. There is more to come. The anguish of this experience will be replaced with the anguish of the disappearance of the physical manifestation of Jesus.

 

We like to see what we see, to be able to touch and smell the material essence of life. We are uncomfortable with anything that can’t be explained and therefore have a fear of losing what we now hold on to. It is why death frightens us. Not so much the dying, but the letting go of that which we have held onto, that has given life its meaning. Mary and the disciples now have to face the compete loss, at some point, of the physical, visible, audible Jesus. The resurrected Jesus becomes the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, and this disembodied presence is much harder to explain, claim and relate to.

 

No wonder Mary wants to hold on. How do we make that journey from an intervening God who has the characteristics we can explain in human terms to a God who is spirit and love? A God ever-present and indwelling but intangible and elusive. A God who is alive but in no need of physicality to define presence. A God who is present not just us as humans but to all creatures to the extent each is capable. A God who calls us back to whom we were before we were born.

 

Here is the return to the child, the virgin. A return to the innocence and openness of a some-one who is without judgement and images, with ideas and ideologies, who simply holds in both hands, sees with both the eyes the beauty in all things as they are. Mary does not judge, there are no questions, no please explains, no I want to know why? At no point does she chastise Jesus. She has been so emptied by the experience of his death that she is now ready to engage with a new way of seeing. She is transformed by her experiences and begins to see differently.

 

Being transformed means letting go of our worldly way of seeing things, seeing through the lens of our false our superficial self, by letting go of the things which prevent us from seeing, hearing experiencing as a child does; not in duality but in unity.

 

Legend tells of a young man and a guru walking along the edge of a cliff. The young man asks the guru to explain the meaning of faith. There is a

 

Gentle silence before the Guru replies, Faith is leaning out of the edge of the cliff.

 

The young man smiles, that is simple.

The guru suggests he go to the edge of the cliff and hold out his hands. He does so.

 

The guru asks him what does he feel?

  

'I can feel the updraft coming up the side of the cliff.'

 

The guru smiled and said, ‘Faith is leaning out until all that holds you safe is the updraft.'

 

Mary is in that place for just a moment and begins to understand the call of God on her life.

 

On this Easter day can we reach out to be held up by the spirit of God? Or do we need the material world for our safety net. Amen. 

These Stones Will Speak.

The Story of Creation (Stones):

⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

 

Palm Sunday ushers in Holy Week and Jesus steady journey to the Cross. It begins ok enough. A carefully orchestrated non-violent procession on the outskirts of town mimicking the military parade of might and power just a stones throw away.

 

Happy followers wave their branches beside a smiling Jesus on a young donkey. Some even lay down their cloaks, probably especially brought for the purpose, on the ground in front of the donkey.

 

It was not a benign procession. The imagery is provocative and powerful. In Zechariah 9:9 we read the promise to the people of Jerusalem of rescue from those oppressing them:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

 

It is powerfully political and religious at the same time. It is aimed squarely at the Romans whose power rules, for now, and at those who appease and seek to keep the status quo. This is not new for Jesus. He has always been political and on the offensive in terms of corruption, violence and oppression. It is the program he set for himself when he announced his ministry in Luke 4 - He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 

 

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

The church is not a benign institution responsible for platitudes, nice music, lovely people; the church is a revolutionary body responsible for bringing in the kingdom of God. It is political for its mandate is the very same mandate Jesus took for himself. We are for the poor, the marginalised and the forgotten. This is not an option but mandatory on all of us to live like this.

 

When the religious leaders suggest that he and his followers tone it down, go through the right channels, work with the powers to be, he replies, ‘“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

 

What an extraordinary thing to say. How do you reply to such a statement? Surely Jesus mental health was questioned? The man’s nuts!

 

In the last week we have discovered that the 12 Apostles dotted along the coast beside the Great Ocean Road are not 8 as we thought (4 had fallen into the sea), but 13. 5 more have been found. These majestic sand stacks have risen and fallen and been discovered over centuries. What stories do they hold? What things could they tell us if only they could talk. But they do. Science will interrogate them and discover more and more about the birth of our planet and our country, the sea and those who live in it. The stones will speak.

 

Jesus is saying this is not about you and your rational, reasonable selves. This is about the transcendence of God, of me who is indistinguishable from God, one with the Godhead who brought all things into being.  Listen to the stones, listen to the sand-stacks, listen to the trees and you will hear them calling out the words of Zechariah. They praise and celebrate God and call for release from oppression. 

 

Jesus reminds us the Godhead is present in all created things and that to silence the voice of one will result in another speaking out, seeking freedom. That voice maybe heard in the sounds and images of climate change, habitat loss, lack of water and the damage to ecosystems so fragile they have taken years to develop.

 

Jesus’ incarnation is not just about human beings, questionably the most intelligent beings on earth, but for all. “For so greatly did God love the world that He gave His only Son, that every one who trusts in Him may not perish but may have the Life of Ages.” It is only human beings who have a choice. The stones will always cry out in praise and adoration seeking to return to God simply by being a stone. Humans fail to hear the sound other creatures make and fail to see the implication in Jesus statement, you are not the centre of the world. Yes, you were made for relationship with God, but it is not all about you.

 

Others are valued and valuable and you are to take steps to care for the least of these. You are to resist oppression of peoples and creatures, oppose the destruction of the planet for profit and greed, and to ensure all have the opportunity to celebrate the life God has given them.

 

Jesus reminds us of the unity of life – we all co-independent - and challenges the leaders and the rulers to cease the ‘this and that’ of duality. You are alive in this moment. The Good news is here for all, listen and hear it, even the stones on which we are walking are speaking.

 

Thomas Merton responded when someone asked about how he lived out his monastic life, first a little humorously:

 

This is not a hermitage, it is a house. (“Who was that hermitage I seen you with last night?”) What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe. Who said Zen? Wash out your mouth if you said Zen. If you see a meditation going by, shoot it. Who said “Love?” Love is in the movies.

 

He than sobers up: “The spiritual life is something that people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual. Spiritual life is guilt. Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament: that is to say, the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.” (Thomas Merton from his essay Day of a Stranger.)

 

Palm Sunday is Jesus return to Jerusalem. It is also the time when he knows his enemies will be coming after him and he only has a short while. He appeals to the ancient prophets and the natural world to give context and meaning to his actions and words. He steps neither backward nor aside from the consequences of speaking out on behalf of all beings who are oppressed by the powerful and the tyrants, secular or religious. He steps forward knowing what the consequences most likely will be.

 

As we stand waving our palm branches and singing our songs are we ready for the decimation of our dreams, our hopes and plans if we take Jesus seriously and follow him to the Cross? Or are we only Palm Sunday Christians? Amen