The Two Gardens

Today is Maundy Thursday.

On this day two thousand years ago, Jesus was weeping in a garden. He had just finished a meal with his closest friends, knowing that one would betray him, the other deny him, and still more would fall asleep on him. But Jesus loved them anyways. The son of God invited them to the Garden of Gethsemane after dinner while he prayed, issuing one simple request:

Keep watch with me. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

Centuries before that, the first man and women dwelled in a different Garden. Everything was at their disposal—the company of animals, the lush flowers and trees with their shelter and fruit, and unbroken fellowship with their Creator. And God issued one simple request of Adam and Eve, one that should have been easy to keep when so much had already been given to them:

Do not eat the fruit from that tree. It leads to death.

But Adam and Eve did eat the fruit, and original unbroken fellowship with God was shattered; and the disciples did sleep off the wine from their dinner, and Jesus was left alone to pray.

I wonder if God wept in the Garden of Eden when his beloved children and friends chose death over faithful communion. I wonder if God’s voice cracked that evening when God called out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” Maybe Jesus had tears in his eyes, too, when he saw that his friends chose sleep over faithful communion.“Couldn’t you keep watch with me for one hour?”

How would you feel?
How did Jesus feel?
Wasn’t Jesus human, too?

Imagine this:

You are a woman in the throes of childbirth. You have never experienced such agony before, and you want nothing more than for the birthing process to be over. You are sweating, you are weeping, there is blood and searing pain. Yet you know the suffering you endure will bring forth new life. Meanwhile, in the chair beside your hospital bed, your partner is sound asleep.

I wonder if Jesus like that.

“For a long time I have kept silent,
I have been quiet and held myself back.
But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.”

(Isaiah 42:14)

God describes God’s self as a woman in childbirth when he details his plan of salvation through the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 42 contains the beautiful suffering servant passage, in which God describes Jesus as the only human capable of perfect faithfulness and obedience:

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.

He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.”

(Isaiah 42:1-4a)

This is Jesus: disarmingly gentle, filled with God’s Spirit, faithful until the end.

Several verses later, God describes the redemption of the world as a birthing act in which God refuses to hold back eternal life from God’s people. After centuries of silence, God will birth salvation through Jesus:

“For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.

I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn rivers into islands and dry up the pools.

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth."

These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

(Isaiah 42:14-16)

This is God: a devastated Creator, a laboring Woman, a suffering Servant, a betrayed Friend.

On this Thursday, the son of God knelt in a lonely garden and chose death. But in choosing death, he also chose life.

Beloved, let us worship the Suffering Servant today in quiet wonder.
May our tears flow freely over the brokenness in our world and in our hearts.
May the tremendous passion of God in birth and in death enfold us in its mystery.
May we watch for Resurrection with eyes of faith.

Amen.

To go deeper with Jesus’ experience in the Garden of Gethsemane and its implications for us today, click the button below to read this beautiful article by my husband, Drew. You will be so glad you did.