Back in the Garden again!

Easter is about change -  Radical change

Obviously.  Think about the resurrection.  What is the resurrection all about?

Well it is about the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus coming to life after being really really dead!

That’s change.

It is about our resurrection.  I think many of us think of Easter in terms of life after life.  It means the end we call death is not an end.  Another big change.

But today I want to think about what Easter means for us now!

Not in terms of what it meant for Jesus

Not in terms of heaven -  not in terms of hope for life after death

But now - today – day by day

I think we get a great clue as to what this change is about in the setting of the stories about Easter morning.  Where does it all take place?  John tells us, it’s a garden.  And in fact there is a wonderful little story about Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the garden

Mary comes to the garden and finds the tomb empty

She panics, for a moment, and then she sees him…..Here Jesus is… the risen Lord!

This is amazing, impressive wonderful stuff!  Wow, a dead person back to life!

And…She has no idea who he is!

“Say, you!  Do you work here?”  “I’m looking for Jesus in aisle 3”

She sees Jesus, but she doesn’t see him.  She thinks he is the help.  A gardener

That actually makes me smile.  Imagine being the risen Jesus.  The most amazing miracle ever has happened.  You present yourself to someone you knew very very well, and they don’t even know its you!

But the big point is the emphasis John puts on the fact this is a garden… with a gardener.

Where else do we have a garden play a big part in the story?  Right at the beginning.  In the garden of Eden, back where everything goes wrong  --  back where the choice of humanity wreaked havoc upon creation.  In the garden things went wrong.   Now in the garden, things get set right

Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:   “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

The resurrection of Jesus reverses the garden of Eden.  Just as through one man, death, so through one man life.  Through the cross,  God  is working to reclaim us, working to make us the people we were created to be

The point of the cross isn’t forgiveness, although that is one step in the process.

Forgiveness leads to something bigger….restoration

God isn’t just interested in the covering of our sins.  God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be.  It’s not just the removal of what’s being held against us, it is God pulling us into the people God originally had in mind when he made us…

Paul talks about the old man, and the old woman,  and as we heard earlier, he talks about new creations

Because of Easter we are new creations.  Or perhaps it might be equally valid to say we become “renewed creations”.  Christ died and rose, and we die to that old self, and that new self, which is really our original self is born.  The old self dies with Christ, but our created to be self, our authentic self, our real self is  resurrected

This means essentially, that we can be, ourselves.  So first, we no longer have to beat ourselves up over all the things we are not, and all the things we are not doing, and all the things we are doing poorly, this it the forgiveness part.

But second, we are being restored.

Our sin, our weaknesses, the twistedness of our being is, in a real way no longer an issue

Old person Gone!  New person here!

Now

Rebirthed

Resurrected

Rescued

Reborn

Rebirthed

Remade

Reconciled

Renewed

Yes, we may still make mistakes at times

We may stumble.  No, not may, will

The old person will come back from the dead for a few moments

But we admit it --Confess it… the cross says we are forgiven

We let it go

and move on…

God made us in God’s image

We were created to reflect the beautify and creativity and wonder of God

Somewhere in us is that person, the person we were created to be

Jesus calls us to return to our true selves

And the cross, and Easter

Says we can do just that

And Christ died that the first you.  The original you

The created to be you…Can be!

Yes, the image of God is deeply scared in each of us. But in the cross and the resurrection God shows God’s ability to bring that created to be self back to life.  The ability, the power God has to repair, raise up the scarred and broken image

Because the cross is not about our accomplishments, its about God’s love.  It is not about our earning our way into God’s good graces.  It is not about us leveraging our works and our righteousness so that we can look down, in any way on other people.  It is about us knowing that we aren’t worthy, but about us accepting the good news that in spite of that - we are accepted, and loved.  And that through the cross, we have a chance.  Moment by moment, to be who we were created to be. 

We have the chance, because of what Christ has done, to just be, our First selves –

no longer at the mercy of other people,

or the pressures of the world, or hate, and greed, and bias, and anger…

We have a chance to be so secure in our relationship with God,

that we can dare to give, and forgive, and care, and listen.

And that is truly new!