Thinking He Was the Gardener

In a sort of "aside" in his sermon yesterday (Easter Sunday) our pastor said, "What an appropriate mis-idendification Mary made, thinking Jesus was the gardener." For in the most comprehensive sense, he is the gardener--the gardener of the lives of all believers, of course, but also, as Kuyper suggests, the gardener of every square inch of creation, of the stars and the animals and the radish seeds just planted in my garden, gardener of rulers and politicians and voters, gardener of artists and poets and bloggers, gardener of architecture and technology and obscure academic journals--and he desires (I think) to nurture and nourish it all. Of course, all of creation is groaning under the weight of sin and that includes its caretakers; so much of what we see in the creation is bent or blighted or worm-eaten. But because Christ is risen, we have the promise and the witness of a new creation that gives us hope as we move out on this Monday morning into the gardens of the world. We will get dirt under our fingernails, and grass stains on our knees, but we will persevere because of the resurrection of the gardener-rabbi who had to say just one word, "Mary," and dejection instantly became jubilation.

I call my blog gardener-dave, and some readers have suggested that because of that, I ought to write more about gardening, about growing flowers and vegetables. And I should. But when I took the name gardener-dave for my blog, I was really thinking about the more comprehensive gardening I have just been talking about and that most of us do as culture-makers. Writing a poem is gardening as is building a coffeehouse. Getting involved in politics is gardening. Nurturing children and grandchildren is gardening.

That said, the big news at 432 1st Ave. is that the daffodils are blooming in the back yard and the forsythia bush is pushing out gold. (However, nature's first green is not--on our yard, anyway--gold but the delicate purple of crocuses.) Last Friday, which was Good Friday, I planted potatoes. My grandfather believed firmly that that was the only time to plant them and while I don't believe in that bit of folk wisdom, the snow was gone, the earth was fairly warm and dry and the sun was shining, so I got out my garden spade and planted spuds. I also have some lettuce, spinach and radish seeds in the soil.

I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and nothing confirms that for me better than taking a tiny, dry lettuce seed and putting in the soil.