“Three Gardens, Three Lessons”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Friday, April 2, 2010
Text: Genesis 2:8-9, John 18:1-11
At the time for a young boy it seemed the most boring thing for a young boy to do: to go with my parents and visit their friends and have afternoon tea. To sit in a back garden with two ministers and their spouses and be the only child present was not exactly exciting! But I went. My parents would take me to visit this colleague of my father's and the more we visited, the more I realized that I was deeply privileged.
The man was the Reverend Albert Bayley. He was not very well known throughout the world; certainly not the most famous minister, but if you look through your Hymn Book you will find hymns written by him. He was considered to be one of the great hymn writers of the 20th century. Bayley lived a quiet life and served only rural pastorates. He was eventually recognized at the end of his days at Westminster Abbey.
He was one of the greatest hymn writers of the 20th century but to have afternoon tea with him one would never know. He was modest, humble, and quiet. We would go to his home and in his home there was a beautiful back garden in the village of Thaxstead in Essex. He would on some occasions allow me to take my football and kick it around the garden but more often than not just to sit quietly and have tea. I once asked him when I was a little older, “Albert, where have you written most of your hymns?”
He pointed to the back of his beautiful garden where there was a stone bench. He said, “I wrote all my poems on that bench in the garden.”
I said, “Why the garden?”
He said, “Because throughout the year it changes. Some of them I have written out there on cold, chilly days; others in the warmth of the summer sun. Some I have written in the spring, when things are budding and some in the autumn, when things are dying. But my hymns are not just about creation, they are about the Lord, and the Lord knows us in all our seasons.”
I now look back when I read so many of these hymns that there was indeed this influence even in my life and the things that I hold dear. In one of his great hymns, God of All Good, in the final verse he wrote these words from his garden:
Maker, whose bounty all creation shows
Christ, by whose willing sacrifice we live
Spirit, from whom all life in fullness flows
To you with grateful hearts ourselves we give
These are words of truth from the garden.
As I thought of Albert and the fact that it is 30 years since he died, I couldn't help but think that from gardens, even in the Bible, come these great truths and great meaning for our walk with God. I have chosen for this morning three gardens of the Bible, gardens that show us the power of God's salvation, and when you put them together form a whole that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The first garden is the Garden of Purpose and Promise, the Garden of Eden. From Genesis Chapter 2, this is probably the second version of the creation story that we find in The Old Testament. It is based very much on old myths and language around at the time from the Akkodians. The Enuma Elish was one of the great myths of creation and it began with God. But, this is different: this is God creating the garden. It is God creating this beautiful place. And, in this beautiful place, in this gorgeous garden, there is a blessing; there is joy.
In the middle of the garden, we are told, there is a tree, and that tree is the Tree of Life, and from this Tree of Life there is the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve - humankind - is created in this beautiful garden, and when the humanity arrived in this garden, it was supposed to live forever. The Tree of Life was supposed to be the source of inspiration. God created everything and it was good, and in the Garden of Eden everything good was symbolized, and humanity, created in the image of God, lived in this garden immortal, eternal and morally clean.
We all know what happened in the story of the garden. Adam and Eve were not content with God. They see what they thought was the control of good and evil. They became disobedient, and in their sin, God said, “You are out of the garden! I have created absolute perfection, but you want to elevate yourself. You are banished from the garden!” So the Garden of Promise and Purpose became a distant memory for Adam and all humans that arose from him.
Kennett Hamilton, the great United Church theologian, who himself died this past year, and who was a great mentor of mine, once said, “The whole of the Old Testament, from the banishment of Adam and Eve, was really an attempt to go back to Eden, that through the law, through the Covenant, through the ministry of the people of Israel, there was an attempt to put right the wrongs of Eden, to control the influence of having been banished from Eden, to try to return to the garden from where we arose.”
The second garden is a Garden of Shame. It is the garden that is called Gethsemane. Gethsemane means “olive press.” In Gethsemane, there are beautiful olive trees. On the other side of the Kidron valley from Jerusalem, this beautiful garden was the place where Jesus used to take his disciples. According to both the Synoptics and John, Jesus would take them there and in one of the stories asks them to pray with him before the last day of his life.
In another, it was in that very garden, the place where Jesus should have been safe with his disciples, that one of them came along and betrayed him. But in the garden, which should also have been a garden of promise and a garden of peace and a garden of safety for the Son of God, it became the place where sin continues in its ugly form. With the kiss, the Son of God was betrayed. The one who had come to put humanity straight, the one who had risked everything by coming to earth in the Incarnation, the one who wanted to put the sin of Adam away once and for all, was kissed on a cheek and betrayed in the garden.
Everything seemed wonderful and glorious when the Messiah arrived and had been heralded in the streets of Jerusalem just days before. It appeared that Christ would be victorious and would bring about the rule of God, and then there was the kiss of betrayal in the garden. Isn't it amazing how one little sin, even a minute one by one person, can cause such calamity and death?
There is a wonderful story told by the people of Haiti as a reminder of what one little sin can do. It is part of Haitian mythology. (It is ironic in the light of everything that has happened to that poor nation over the last few months.) It is a story about a man who owns a home and a poor man comes to him and says to him, “I would like to buy your house.”
The man says, “It will be 2,000 dollars.”
The poor man says, “Well, I can't afford 2,000 dollars but I really want to buy your home. I need your home.”
The homeowner thought to himself for a moment and he said, “I will tell you what I will do. I will sell you the house for half the asking price, but I want to maintain one piece of control over the house. I want to continue to own the nail that is over the front door.”
Well, the poor man said, “I can pay half of the price of the house - that is no problem - I will gladly do that, and you can have the rusty nail above the front door.”
So, he bought the house. The poor man lived in this house. A few years later, the man who originally lived in the house wanted it back.
The poor man said, “I am not going to give you back the house. I love it! This is my home. I have nowhere else to live.”
So, the original owner went and found a dead dog and he carried it to the house, and he hung it on the front nail over the door, the part that he still owned. As that dog decomposed the poor man could no longer live in the house. He and his family had to move. They could not stand the stench. The man who had owned the house in the first place came back in and took over what was his - all because of one rusty nail!
That, my friends, is the power of sin. That is the power of death. One small thing can bring down justice and hope and truth. One kiss can bring down the Son of God, one betrayal, one person, in one garden.
There is the third garden, and it is the garden in which Jesus was buried. John recounts this garden in this way:
Later Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now, Joseph was a disciple of Jesus secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came back and took the body. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who had earlier visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it with the spices and with strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial custom. At the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden with a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid, because it was the Jewish day of preparation. Since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
This is the Garden of Hope.
The Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans, Chapter 5, suggests that Jesus is the new Adam and that the sin causing humanity to be banished from the Garden of Eden is now being taken on in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. By taking that sin, all of it, small and great and bearing it on his body on the Cross and having it laid in the tomb, there a new Eden was found. In there is the forgiveness of sin. In there, is the promise of eternal life. In there death is defeated. In there, God reigns. In that place, God himself has put right all the things humanity has done wrong. In there is the promise of eternal life. In there is hope, in the garden, in the garden tomb.
There is a wonderful poem by Pitt, and in it he talks about the fact that God, who made the Garden of Eden and the whole world has also, through his own work re-fashioned our way back to Eden, our way back to eternal life, our way back to the promise of God. He wrote these words:
His holy fingers full on the bow
Where grew the thorns that crowned his brow
The nails that pierced the hand were mine
In secret places He designedHe made the forest whence they sprung
The tree on which his holy body hung
He died upon a cross of wood
Yet made the hill upon which it stoodThe sun which hid from his its face
By his decree was poised in space
The sky which darkened o'er his head
By him above the earth to spreadThe spear that spilled his precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God
The grave in which his form was laid
Was hewn in rocks, his hand had made
My friends, this Good Friday, think of those gardens. Think of Eden and its eternity and the Tree of Life. Think of how pernicious sin can be with the Garden of Shame and the betrayal of Jesus. Think of the tomb in which Christ was placed and realize that in three days the Cross becomes the Tree of Life again, the garden too. Eden for us all! Amen.