As we encounter Jesus in a Garden today, keep in mind that humanity is now living outside of Eden. Read John 19:38-20:18, take a few deep breaths, and imagine the following.

Jesus is dead. You’ve watched this healer of the blind and deaf and brokenhearted, this welcomer of the outcast, be wrongly accused, tortured, murdered. Joseph and Nicodemus have prepared his body for burial, but Sabbath is looming, and they need a place to put him, immediately. And there, beside this horrible death, is a garden, and in that garden, a new, unused tomb. Jesus’ body was held in an “unused” space before: Mary’s womb. Can we remember, even here, that God miraculously opens wombs?

Later, in the darkness, a figure enters the garden. Can you make out Mary Magdalene as she finds her way to the tomb? Feel the early morning breeze as it stirs in the trees; smell the floral aroma released by the morning dew. Even in this tragic darkness, can you catch a sense of hope?

After the shock of discovering the tomb opened, and after being left alone as Peter and John have come and gone, watch as Mary looks into the empty tomb. What is she feeling as she does? Can you sense her heartbreak at not being able to find Jesus? Have you ever felt that he has somehow disappeared?

As Mary weeps, there in the garden, a figure stands behind her. Turning, she thinks she sees the gardener. She’s not wrong. And as she expresses her desire to find Jesus, he says her name. “Mary.” Right now, close your eyes, imagine Jesus standing before you, and hear him say your name. How does your heart respond, knowing that Jesus is alive and with you, calling your name?

Hear Jesus, in this garden, speak to a woman. See her take his words out into the world, so all can know that death is defeated, the serpent is crushed, and paradise can again be found!

Scholar Gail O’Day said this: “Once again the intimate and the cosmic conjoin: through the intimacy of Mary’s name, the reality of the resurrection is revealed.” The way into Eden has been re-opened by Jesus, the Good Gardener who defeated death and grafts us into himself, the true Tree of Life. Let’s be like Mary and share this incredible news.

-Lori Duncan