Sin and the fall of humanity both began and concluded in a garden. It was in a garden that humanity abused God’s most precious gift of love, plunging the entire race into the depths of sin and distortion. We know that Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden of Eden, a place of uninhibited communion with God. Sin cast them from the presence of God, but not permanently. The estrangement ended in another garden many years later. On a Sunday, as the sun began to break over the peaceful serenity of a Garden in the morning, the power of death was forever broken.
Intriguingly, the story of God’s restoration of humanity also began and concluded with two gardeners. We may recall that the first Adam was to watch over the garden. He was to work the land and bend it to his will. Unfortunately, what was to be governed by humanity, became the governor of humanity. Rather than having dominion over the created order, the first gardener and those who followed him have found themselves at the mercy of the stuff of creation. God intended for the first Adam to stand tall upon the earth and bow low before Him. However, in a tragic turn of events, Adam rebelliously vaunted himself before God and prostrated himself before the creation. It is shocking that the second Adam was mistaken for a gardener by Mary on that Sunday morning. Overcome with grief, she did not realize she was in the presence of her lord. Surmising he was the gardener, she interrogated Jesus concerning his own whereabouts. Though Jesus was not an actual gardener, he undeniably understood his ascendancy over creation. Jesus experienced an adamic-like temptation in the wilderness. For 40 days Satan placed before Jesus the very “earth-stuff” that caused Adam and Eve to salivate. In a dramatic contrast to our first parents, Jesus stood tall above the “stuff” of creation. As Paul wrote, Jesus…
“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)
Two women were also in the garden, Eve mistook the serpent for a helper and informant, while in reality he was the devil of hell seeking to destroy God’s good creation. Mary, mistook Jesus for a simple gardener, at least initially, when in reality he was the redeemer of the world, seeking to bring healing to God’s great creation. Both women’s eyes were opened by a simple action. Eve’s eyes were opened the moment she failed to trust in God and acted on her own behalf. In that moment her eyes became shut to God and opened to the harsh realities of a world without him. Mary’s eyes were opened to Jesus the moment he spoke her name. Her eyes became opened to the power and reality of the risen savior and shut to the pain of a hopeless world without him.
It is exceedingly possible to elevate these similarities beyond what is reasonable. One might suggest that we have stumbled onto a classic case of inconsequential similarities. Yet, before we dismiss these musings as paltry theological reflection, we might consider one last interesting object. While we do not know the specific type of fruit that Adam and Eve feasted on in the garden on that infamous day, we can be certain that just like Christ, it hung from a tree. Yes, one might suggest that the fall and redemption of humanity begins and ends with how each one of us responds to what hung on those trees.
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