The Master Gardener

It is not surprising that, in John’s account of the first appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary of Magdala, she mistook him for a gardener. Christine Valtner Painter has noted that, before Jesus’ arrest, “The garden was the container for his deepest prayer.” Now Jesus himself has experienced the complete life cycle of the garden: birth, flowering, harvest, death, and rebirth. He has dwelled for a time in the darkness of the earth and knows its secrets. He is truly the Master Gardener!

Painter also notes that “Earth is the primordial sacrament,” a means of divine grace that has existed since the beginning of human life. Flowering dogwoods and lilacs and sprouting seeds certainly are signs of the spiritual reality that life follows death, a reality that has been personified in the person of Jesus. Therefore, our Easter season wardrobe should include a flower tucked behind our ear and dirt under our fingernails, as we meditate on the earth that once contained the body of Jesus and blooms now with the joy of the resurrection.