Back to the Garden

Jesus died on Friday afternoon. The Sabbath – the Jewish day of rest – began at sundown, which left little time for a proper burial.

As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. (Matthew 27:57-60, NLT)

There was no time to wash and anoint Jesus’ body as was customary. So, a group of women who had followed Jesus throughout His ministry went back to finish the burial process on Sunday morning after the Sabbath.

Mary Magdalene, arrived at the tomb early that morning only to find that the stone had been rolled away and Jesus was gone.

A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind. Of all the explanations she must have considered, resurrection wasn’t one of them. It seemed far more likely that the body had been stolen.

She began to weep.

She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”

She thought he was the gardener. (John 20:14-15, NLT)

What a beautiful mistake.

Listen to what the book of Genesis says.

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. (Genesis 2:7-8, NLT)

In the beginning, God breathed life into Adam, the first man, and placed him in a garden.

But Adam rebelled against God and, through his sin, brought death and decay to all of creation and to all mankind.

On the first Easter, God again breathed the breath of life into a man’s nostrils. On Easter, the crucified Jesus again became a living person. He stepped out of the tomb and into another garden.

Listen to how N.T. Wright puts it.

“Easter functions as the beginning of the new creation. The Word through whom all things were made is now the Word through whom all things are remade” (Surprised by Hope, 238).

God has not given up on His creation.

What was lost in the garden of Eden was redeemed here in the garden of the resurrection.

This is the good news of Easter! This is both the present reality and the future hope of every follower of Jesus!

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT)

The old is gone.

The new has come.

This is the promise – the good news – of the resurrection.

Read John 20:1-18 and reflect on the parallels between the resurrection and the creation accounts in Genesis 1-2.