Whenever I cycle to the Co-op supermarket in the summer months I am always greatly impressed by many of the lovely gardens to be seen along Thorne Road - it is a joy to see gardens so lovingly and carefully kept and nurtured.  In previous years I have enjoyed the Feering Open Gardens weekends and the Flower Festivals at All Saints and now, in what hopefully will be "flaming June" we have the Kelvedon Open Gardens to look forward to in this middle of this month.
Gardens are very important in Holy Scripture.  In the book Genesis - paradise is portrayed as a garden - and, as a result of Adam and Eve's disobedience they are banished from the perfect garden.  As my training Vicar at Boston always used to say "Every paradise has its serpent" - the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. In actual fact the Bible doesn't name what kind of fruit it was - in the West we have always presumed it to be an apple - but in Persia - it is more regarded as a pomegranate, my favourite fruit!

On Maundy Thursday Our Lord made the greatest decision of his ministry, in a garden, 'not my will but thine be done'.  On Easter Day Mary of Magdala goes to a different, but nearby, garden and there she experiences an encounter with Jesus, which is of enormous significance.  "She, supposing him to be the gardener."  I am not as sure as St. John the Evangelist that Mary of Magdala was wrong!  'Supposing him to be the gardener' is never in fact contradicted in John's gospel account of the resurrection morning, although most readers take it to be a mistake.

The Holy Bible begins in a garden with God in action - creating.  It is immediately followed by the story of the forbidden fruit and Adam and Eve's Fall from grace with their drastic decision to disobey.  In a way that was the moment when their full humanity was realised, and they obtained their freedom from God when they exercised their "freewill" for the very first time.  One result, the angel tells them, is that Adam will find gardening difficult, 'cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread until you return to the groundÖ'  and that is how it is, as any gardener and allotment owner will testify.

On Maundy Thursday Our Lord is once again in a garden - Gethsemane.  He knows what it is that God the Father wants of him and he is revolted.  He has the freedom to escape and he agonises over his choice.  It is the moment in the gospels when God is actually powerless; everything is in Jesus' hands - when He must make his choice between obedience and disobedience.  Three times Jesus prays for another way, yet ultimately he decides, "Yet not my will but thine be done" and he goes on to his arrest, to his death and his burial tomb - in a garden.

Now, as every gardener knows - there's nothing like a good pruning to encourage growth.  Well - on the tree, which is the Cross - the greatest pruning in history took place when Christ the King was Crucified but look at the new life which followed thereafter as a result of that crucifixion - that "pruning".

On Easter Day, we read of Mary of Magdala in that garden when she encountered the one she supposed to be the gardener.  When he spoke her name - "Mary" - she realised that the Lord had risen from the grave and the Church began to flourish and grow - as it always does when people have an authentic encounter with Jesus - the Risen Lord.

So Mary of Magdala was not mistaken.  In creation and in the Garden of Eden - God is the great gardener who puts all things in order, such order that he trusts creation with the fullest freedom that any love can give.  In the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives Jesus endures the sweat and agony of Adam's gardening, 'thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you' and he persists of his own freewill so that it is at one with God again.  In the garden of Resurrection Jesus is regarded to be the great gardener who will make all things well again.  In the garden of Joseph of Arimathea we see the bloom of vindication bear full fruit as Mary of Magdala - symbol of redeemed humanity - first Apostle of the resurrection, says, "I have seen the Lord".  She might just as well have said, "I have seen the true Gardener", for He alone is the only One who can restore us to the paradisal state.

With Summer Blessings,

FATHER DAVID