Four Gardens: Potential, Pressure, Presence, Preservation

17th Annual Blyth Memory Garden Dedication Service
Sun. June 16, 2019
Gen 2:8-9,15-17; Mt.26:36-39; Jn 19:40-42; 20:14-17; Rev 22:1-5

GRIEF, GARDENS, AND GROWTH
Why are we here today? Hopefully it’s not just because, “So-and-so made me come.” (!) No, really, why are we here? Is it because we didn’t have anything else to do with our time? I doubt it. Is it because the Memory Garden is such a beautiful spot? The volunteers have worked long and hard to make it beautiful, but there are plenty other pretty spots to be on a nice spring day. No, I suspect the real reason we’re here is on account of PEOPLE: the names on the memorial leaves and stones point to real flesh-and-blood persons who have passed on but whose lives have impacted ours in very positive and loving ways.
    By our interactions we affect other people’s lives. And they impact us. It’s all part of growing and maturing in life, what we’re built for. God designed us with the ability and means to be IN RELATIONSHIP, to love and serve our family and friends and neighbourhood. Jesus talked about ‘bearing fruit’. He told His followers in John 15(5,8), “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing...This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
    The old Westminster Shorter Catechism my father used to delight in quoting began by asserting that our chief “end” as humans is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Jesus says it glorifies His Father when we bear much fruit – so a big part of life must revolve around growing and maturing to the point we can sow God’s love and goodness and truth and blessing into the lives of those around us. Life is about so much more than just being born and eating and drinking and working and dying.
    Scripture suggests there are at least 4 gardens that come to bear on our existence. These are: the Garden of Potential in Eden; the Garden of Pressure at Gethsemane; the Garden of Presence at Easter; and the Garden of final Preservation at Resurrection, after the Day of Judgment. Let’s look at each of these in turn, and the response each elicits from us.

GARDEN OF POTENTIAL: COMMANDMENT
The Bible tells us that life began in a garden – in Eden, in fact. God Himself planted this garden, and put Adam and Eve there, and planted all kinds of trees that were good to eat. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Let’s call this ‘the garden of POTENTIAL’. When we’re young and just starting out, life has so many possibilities. There’s lots of choices to make: to marry or not to marry, what trade we’ll learn / what to work at, where we’ll go to school and where we’ll live. Things are very open-ended and there are rewards and consequences for the choices we make, the course we take. We are thankful for the people remembered in this Memory Garden, that they chose to let their lives intersect with ours.
    We read, “And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." In the freedom of this potential, Scripture cautions us to respond in the light of God’s COMMANDMENT. Adam and Eve COULD have chosen not to eat of the forbidden fruit – instead they could have eaten of the tree of life: but they decided to thumb their nose at God and ‘do their own thing’ instead. Unfortunately the consequences of their free choice brought death and decay to the very creation we were placed here to take care of.
    Death claims our loved ones, too early it seems. So pausing to remember them on days like this helps us appreciate how fleeting life is and how precious were the years we had together.

GARDEN OF PRESSURE: COMMIT
Just before the end of Jesus’ life, He took a time out to visit a garden – one called “Gethsemane”, which literally means “oil press” – amongst the trees of this olive grove there was apparently an apparatus for squeezing the oil from the trees’ fruit. This was the place just before Jesus’ arrest where He endured much torment of mind. We’re told He “began to be sorrowful and troubled.” Pressure was mounting: if He didn’t escape now, He would have to die a tortured cruel death for a capital crime He did not commit. Jesus admitted to His companions, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
    Life has its pressures. It squeezes us at times until it feels like we’re going to burst. There are financial pressures – too much month and not enough money; medical pressures, our bodies wear out and break down; relationship pressures – people disappoint us, let us down, move away, lose contact, leave us alone. Many of us had to stand by and watch our loved ones struggle through various of these trials. It wasn’t easy. We would have traded places with them at points if we could have.
    Jesus understands the pressures we face in life. He got beaten up at the end. His own disciples ran off and deserted Him when the chips were down. But He chose to bear the suffering for our sakes, on our behalf, so our sins could be forgiven and divine justice satisfied.
    When we’re facing times of pressure, we need to COMMIT our lives afresh to God. Hear how Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.Yet not as I will, but as you will.” He committed His life into God’s hands. At the very end, drawing His final breaths on the cross, He said: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Lk 23:46) When the worst happens, and you don’t feel you can go on – entrust your life to God. He can strengthen to bear up under the pressure. Isaiah 41:10 - “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

GARDEN OF PRESENCE: CLAIM
Not long after, the scene shifts to another garden. We’re told after Jesus’ crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus laid him in a new tomb nearby in another garden. On Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene can’t find Jesus’ body, she is distraught. Jesus appears to her in His risen form, but she doesn’t recognize Him; when He asks, “Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” She actually mistakes Him for the gardener. (Yes He is, actually, but not those kind of plants! He’s cultivating the two-legged variety.)
    One of the most precious parts of this story is the fact that Jesus is actually appearing in person to His mourning disciple Mary Magdalene. When she finally realizes Who He is, she has a hard time letting go, she wants to keep holding on. His PRESENCE is very special to the person who loves Him.
    We are drawn to this garden partly because the presence of our loved ones is reflected to a small degree by emblems of remembrance – memorial leaves, stones, benches, other artifacts. We miss them, and we can’t bring them back. The fact that they loved us, and we them, made their presence very special.
    The Garden of Presence draws us to CLAIM God’s promises. When Jesus called Mary by name, John tells us, “She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher)” – literally, MY teacher. When God shows up, we do well to bow down and acknowledge His sovereignty and Lordship, over our lives and our future. There is so much in this life that is beyond our control: circumstances take inexplicable turns, things happen we never would have expected, life is so fragile... We need Him, we acclaim Him to be Who He says He is.

GARDEN OF PRESERVATION: COMPLETION
So to review, there’s the garden of POTENTIAL, with its COMMANDMENT; the garden of PRESSURE, where we COMMIT; the garden of PRESENCE, where we do well to CLAIM; and finally, the Bible has a prophecy about yet one more garden at the end of time, the Garden of PRESERVATION.
    John writes in the final chapter of Scripture, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.”
    This is a garden or orchard of sorts of fruit trees, yielding fruit not annually but monthly; and the leaves of the trees are “for the healing of the nations”. For our PRESERVATION, our recovery, our being-set-right. We long for that for our dear departed loved ones. It was tough in many cases to stand by and watch their mortal husks deteriorate. Here the Bible gives us hope, describing Jesus in His risen glorified spiritual body as a sort of ‘firstfruits’ of those who believe in Him and belong to Him. The Apostle Paul writes in 1Cor 15:20-23, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep...For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.”
    If the other gardens evoke our response by COMMANDMENT, COMMITMENT, and CLAIM, this garden – with its leaves of healing and restoration, garden of preservation – points to our COMPLETION. God’s revelation in Scripture assures us that this life is not all there is: there IS life beyond death, where justice and mercy and righteousness prevail instead of death and disease and dashed hopes. A place of completion that will be like being ‘at home’ with God. Paul could even speak of it this way: “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2Cor 5:8)
    And if you think THIS garden is a nice spot – just wait til you see THAT! Let’s pray.