Life in the Gardens of God: redeemed life

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.

John 19:41

As you well know ladies, the enticing bouquet of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was too much for the happy pair in Eden, once that crafty snake got his way. So God drove the two out, placing a guard on the gate to keep them from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). Purity had lost to desire.      

But the Lord God was gracious to us all. To the serpent He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Jesus was the plan.

It was in another garden, Gethsemane, that He won the battle for your life and mine: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” …And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:42-44).

In my mind’s eye I can see the garden, Golgotha, where my life and your life were redeemed: the rocky hill “called the Skull [where] they crucified him” (Luke 23:33), the tomb “cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid” (Luke 23:53). I duck my head to enter, as John and Peter and Mary Magdalene had to do (John 20:5-8,11). The stark coldness of the two stone slabs inside gives me the shivers; but I know better—the stone was rolled away. Jesus is alive! When I walk outside into the garden I half expect to see Him, as Mary Magdalene did that resurrection Sunday: Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have  carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary” (John 20:15-16). A reverent peace permeates the air, and my soul.  

In Eden mankind died the death of life. In Gethsemane and Golgotha the eternal battle against that death was won by the only One who could redeem fallen man. Thank you Jesus.  

Nancy P