A Tale of Two Gardens

A short phrase in John 18 jumped out at me this morning, because it pointed to a pattern in the life of Jesus. A pattern not about people – He had many patterns like that – but about a place. Verse 2 says of the Garden of Gethsemane, “Jesus often met there with His disciples.” That’s how Judas knew where it was, and he assumed that he would find Jesus there. He was right. Jesus apparently liked to go there.

He could have met with His men anywhere, but Jesus LIKED to go to a garden. Let that sink in.

I find myself wondering why, and also wondering what would go through His mind as He met there regularly with the men through whom He was planning to change the world. Yes, it’s speculation.  But speculation can be fun.

You see, another garden figured prominently in human history.  In fact, it’s where history began – the Garden of Eden. And without delving too deeply into the mysteries of the Trinity, let’s simply recognize that Colossians 1:15-16 makes it clear that Jesus was instrumental in that moment of creation.

With that in mind, I wonder what Jesus was thinking each time He entered THIS garden with His disciples? Bible scholars believe that the word “entered” implies that it was a walled garden. Was He thinking about the time when human rebellion forced Him to drive Adam and Eve out of THAT garden? Was He thinking about the moment when, rather than building a wall, He stationed an angel at the entrance to make sure they could not return and gain access to the Tree of Life in their sinful condition?

What was Jesus thinking as He worked so hard in THIS garden to open the eyes of these men to spiritual truth? Was He thinking back to the moment in THAT garden when the blindness was born, when the first humans heard that truth twisted and perverted by a serpent? In that moment Satan blinded the minds of Adam and Eve, and condemned their descendants to the same spiritual blindness (2 Cor 4:4). It’s why the disciples and their countrymen were unable to see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Jesus had been living among that blindness for 33 years. What was that like for Him?

What was He thinking as the mob arrived to arrest Him? His plan was coming full circle. The sin of THAT garden required a spotless sacrifice, the voluntary death of the Son of God that was now beginning in THIS garden. There is something poetic about it. It makes me smile. I wonder, as He contemplated the terrible death that was His destiny since before the Garden of Eden (Rev 3:18), if it did the same for Him.

I’m glad that gardens matter.  I’m glad that the human race was born in one. I’m glad that our Creator, when He lived with us, liked to hang out in one. And I’m amazed that His plan to die on a cross to undo the tragic destruction of THAT garden began in THIS one.

It’s enough to make you marvel at how well God knows what He is doing.

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