Easter

Looking for the gardener

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

~The Gospel of John 20:15

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

~Genesis 2:5-7

It has never made sense to me, personally, that Easter should feel like a day of triumph. It’s such whiplash to go from the tomb to the cry of “He is risen!” and expect everybody to have their Easter bonnets ready and feasts cooked to perfection. This is a different kind of joy, a promise of hope and persistence in the face of state violence and the grief of a community. The disciples’ varied reactions to the empty tomb reflect profound confusion and cognitive dissonance. The resurrection, the event on which Christianity turns, defies understanding. The pastels of today’s Easter seem fitting to me in that their vibrancy is muted, too timid yet to shout joyful news from the rooftop, still diluted like weak watercolors.

This year, the Gospel of John recounts the resurrection story in a garden outside Jesus’ tomb. Mary Magdalene, as in all of the other Gospels too, witnesses the resurrection first, cementing the leadership of women in the story of God.

In this telling of her story, Mary Magdalene speaks with a man in the garden outside the tomb, thinking he is the gardener and not recognizing him for who he is: Jesus. One could read her mistake as an error, but I choose to read it as the theological key to the whole resurrection story. Her lack of recognition mirrors our own incomprehension of what the Christian story even means. What does it mean to have eternal life, for life to come after death? The Gospels end, and we don’t get much closer to any answer.

But there are some details that, regardless of all the talk of life and death and the heavens and the nature of God, spark real hope. After a brutal execution, life has the final say. In the midst of grief, Mary Magdalene meets a gardener. The very God who, in the Genesis story, formed humans from clay and watered the garden of Eden with rain, returns after death as a gardener. It is a reaffirmation of God’s original command: “Let there be.” Nothing, this seems to say, will stop the eternal story of creation, of God’s creative acts of love. God will continue to plant, to tend, to cultivate life—this strange, beautiful, chaotic experience we all know— even as death rages and rules.

The story gives a clear direction—look for God in the signs of life all around. See the way in which death gives way to life, in which no act of cruelty or destruction will ever have the last word. Plant seeds, water gardens, and befriend the gardener. Life will have its tragedies and cruelties, and they will feel overwhelming and all-encompassing and like the Last Word. The resurrection demands that we not give in to that train of thought, demands that we look for the flowers growing through pavement, that we continue, always, to remember the force of Love running through our veins, asking us to tend to this frail, beautiful garden.

Suggestions for Centering Practices

• Go on a tour of the blooming flowers near your home. Repeat the same walk as often as you can and see what continues to grow.

• Plant something and help it grow.

• Take action to prevent war, death, or destruction this week. Call your representatives about an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Resources, Sacred and Secular, to Take You Deeper in this Season

• “Alibi,” by Hurray for the Riff Raff

• “Morning has Broken” by Yusuf (Cat Stevens)