Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away (Jn. 20:15)
Some of my fondest memories as a child were going to my Mamaw and Papaw Lindsey’s house on Sunset Avenue in Bloomington, Indiana. They were two of the greatest people I’ve ever known. Hardworking, faithful and loving. The two of them worked side by side at RCA’s factory, where they retired together. The two of them were multi-talented and could do anything, at least in my mind they could. They showcased some their talents in the garden in their midsize yard. When I was a child it seemed like that garden was huge. They grew cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and anything else you can think of. It seems like yesterday that we were in that garden picking beans and tomatoes. Mamaw had these two buckets and she’d fill one of them up with fresh picked beans, then we’d break beans and put them in the other bucket. My sisters and myself would break beans with Papaw while Mamaw either fixed us fried green tomato sandwiches, or a homemade pizza. After lunch we were back out in the garden working, or playing yard darts. I miss them dearly, and wish my daughter could have met them and experienced that garden and their love.
From the moment we are introduced to God in Genesis we read that He is multi-talented. He was the Creator of the world and mankind. He would be Adam’s surgeon, Eve’s maker, and a matchmaker, escorting Eve down the garden’s path to her husband. Along with these divine accomplishments, God was a gardener: “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2:8).
God the Gardener
Eden wasn’t the garden. Rather, God planted a garden in the east of Eden. There in the garden the Lord made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food (Gen. 2:9a). The phrase “grow” or “spring up” in the Hebrew means to “sprout” to “cause to grow.” The Lord planted the seed, and it sprouted. Everything that God plants grows. If God plants the seed, then rest assured then it will come to pass.
The Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:9b). God the gardener planted and cultivated everything with intention and purpose.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers – Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. The river which flowed from Eden is a type of the gospel and how it flows through the garden of the church and is distributed through the preaching and witnessing of believers to the four corners of the earth. Every nation and people are watered from gospel streams (Ezekiel 47).
Adam the Gardener
“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:15–17).
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. To “dress” the garden meant to cultivate it. Plowing and working the garden became Adam’s responsibility within the garden. To “keep” the garden was to protect it and maintain it. In other words, Adam, the image-bearer of God, was to become a gardener. The garden was a place of worship and work. Adam had a praise on a lips, and a plow in his hand. He was to praise, plow, and protect. Man’s responsibility is still to worship and work for his Creator, while contending for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
After God placed man in the garden to dress it and keep it, He gave man detailed instructions for the two trees. The Tree of Life was graciously given, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was prohibited. The Tree of Life is symbolic of God’s grace, which is given to believers in Jesus Christ. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is representative of God’s law, which cannot be fulfilled without the enabling power of God’s Spirit.
It wasn’t good that man should be alone, therefore, God made a helper for Adam. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man (Gen. 2:21-22).
Together they were to be fruitful and multiply while having dominion over God’s garden.
A Garden Snake
Every garden has its pests, and I can remember being frozen with fear the day Mamaw told me of the possibility of garden snakes. Eden’s garden had a pest too. The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. History’s first question was a full-blown attack on God’s Word: “Did God actually say ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Eve’s mind was as twisted as a vine. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil caught her attention and its fruit incited within her a lust for power. Adam and his new bride ate the fruit and their eyes were opened. Ashamed with the realization they had been naked all this time, they hurried to make aprons out of fig leaves.
The two of them hid themselves among the trees of the garden when they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden. The Gardener called out to his husbandman and wife, “Where are you?”
Adam and Eve came out from behind the trees and revealed their inadequate covering. “This woman whom you gave to be with me, she made me eat the fruit from the tree” said Adam. “The garden snake deceived me, and I ate” said Eve.
Paradise was lost. Adam and Eve were cursed with sin and suffering. The serpent was promised a date with judgment. Worst of all, the Lord God drove the man out of the garden, and placed an angel to guard the tree of life. The ground was cursed, and Adam would have to painfully work to remove the thorns and thistles to have even a little bit of a harvest.
The Gardener’s Son
Wrapped up in the judgement of Adam’s sin, was a seed of a promise. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). The ground, the serpent, the man and the woman might be cursed, but God’s seed is never cursed.
Therefore, the seed of God’s promise began to sprout. The apostle Paul wrote, “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). The seed of the woman, is the Second Adam, come down from heaven. The God-Man is the Gardener’s Son. He came to do what the first Adam couldn’t. He came to restore the lost Paradise.
Adam was “sent forth” from the garden. The Hebrew word for “sent forth” is “garash” and means to “expel” or “kick out.” It is interesting that when Mark recorded the temptation of Jesus, he chose a comparative Greek work to “garash.” Mark said, “And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness” (Mk. 1:12). The Greek verb for “driveth” is “ekballo” which means “expel” or “drive out.” The first Adam was kicked out for his failure to endure temptation. The Second Adam, Jesus Christ, came to relive Adam’s temptation, but instead of failing, He succeeded. We should note that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and like Adam, He was tempted of the devil to eat (Matt. 4:1-3).
Here was the Gardener’s Son. He spoke of sowing seed on the wayside, on rocky, thorny, and good ground (Matt. 13:18-23). He employed stories about weeds and wheat (Matt. 13:24-30). He shared stories of treasures hidden in fields (Matt. 13:44). He even declared that He was the Vine, and His Father was the Vinedresser (Jn. 15:1-17). Through the simplicity of speaking He could even curse fig trees causing them to wither and die (Matt. 21:18-22).
Where was the Gardener’s Son the night before His death? Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Prayer is the great deterrent to temptation (Matt. 26:41). Adam succumbed to temptation at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and realized he was naked. Jesus triumphed over temptation and His accusers stripped Him naked and to hang Him in open shame on Calvary’s tree. One tree in the garden brought death to the world, and another tree brought life to the world.
Once Jesus had died on Calvary’s tree, His body was taken and laid in a tomb in a garden. In God’s superior plan, after Paradise was lost, it was regained when God took up the vocation of gardening once more. Mary Magadelene went to the tomb early, but seen that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away. She looked into the tomb and seen two angels. Unlike Eden’s cherub, they couldn’t keep the Second Adam in or out.
Jesus asked, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She supposed this man who was speaking with her was the gardener. Beloved, she was correct!
The same Lord God who planted a garden in Eden had now planted life in the soil above an empty tomb.
Beloved, the Gardener has come to give you life. Jesus has come to cultivate the life of the Spirit within us, to cause us to bear spiritual fruit (Jn. 15:1-17; Gal. 5:22). For we are God’s fellow workers, His husbandry, and field (1 Cor. 3:9). Furthermore, as God’s gardeners, we are to expand His Kingdom by being fruitful and multiplying. Beloved, Jesus has come to feed us graciously from the Tree of Life. He will say to us one day, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43).