“Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden” John 19:41
I
made a discovery when I found this text – that though three other
writers of the gospel tell us about the crucifixion of Christ, John,
who writes his story last is the only one who supplies us with the
fact that in the awful place where it happened there was a garden. I
said I found the text – I did in so far as I was browsing at the
time amongst the readings of the passion story;- but perhaps the
reverse is true that the text really found me and turned the musing
of my mind from the shadow of the cross to the glory of a garden. And
yet – without eliminating the cross.
Why
was it I wonder that John saw something worth recording in the fact?
Was
it that in later years he saw, what perhaps the others missed. How
appropriate it was. That though the cross stood for the apparent end
of Joy, and hope and life, the GARDEN was the symbol of things
ever being renewed. It wouldn’t be one of those trim tidy
little gardens which we know, with careful set out beds and
prescribed places in which to walk. It would be a plantation of trees
and shrubs, olives, vines and maybe figs, thick with foliage and
blossom. A place where the breezes blew and the sun shone. Yes I
think that John saw that out of the place of death life rises anew in
the beauty and blossom of the garden. And when we linger near the
cross, that has been described as the deadly tree, what fragrance
blossoms even from its rude bareness. One of truly amazing things
about the tragedy of the cross as Jesus never lost for one moment the
beautiful and delicate point of his own self and soul.
“Father
forgive them etc” - Love triumphant over hate.”Today thou shalt
be with me in paradise” - Goodness overcoming evil. Beauty out of
ugliness. A garden at the foot of the cross.
It
reminds me of those lines of Matheson the blind poet,
“O
cross that liftest up my head
I
dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I
lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And
from the ground there blossoms red
Life
that shall endless be.”
Blossoms
from the ground. A garden in the place of the cross.
In
“The Everlasting Man” G.K.Chesterton declares that life is a
great game of noughts and crosses – place in a new way. The NOUGHTS
stand for the ordinary routine of life – the round, the grind, the
treadmill, conformity to established tradition. The cross of the
game, to be place with success, is placed inside the nought so that
its points pierce the circle – and shatters its monotony for ever.
That
is a remarkable and suggestive truth. It says in another way what
John implies in this text, and what men like Matheson realised, out
of their bitter experience, that the cross which on the one hand
disturbs, and shatters life, may on the other hand save it and
restore it. The cross always means hardship and sorrow and pain but
there is no real progress without it. The saints of old realised it
and deliberately chose it. In one of his essays Dr Boreham relates a
story from the life of St Francis of Assisi by Prof Heckless. St
Francis found a terrible conflict raging in his mind. He longed to be
a monk but he loved a beautiful woman. He was not the type of man to
pour scorn on the happiness of married life. But he chose the
monastery. One moonlit night when the ground was covered with snow
his fellows saw him step out into the garden and there with clever
hands, he fashioned in the snow the forms of a beautiful woman and a
group of children. Then giving rein to his fancy he experienced the
joys of the family. Then he kissed them one by one broke up the snowy
forms and returned to his cell. Once and for all he crucified part of
his warm nature; but there was no bitterness or resentment. He turned
the place where he was crucified into a garden and ever since men
have gathered, the “Little Flowers of St Francis.” Life can bring
us to difficult crossroads and terrific problems but no experience
can come to any one of us that cannot be dealt with in such a way
that we can have a garden in the place where we have the cross.
But
there was another truth, so many of us are afraid of the cross. We
prefer to get all the pleasure and comfort out of life we can without
any thought of others. We turn away from any suggestion of sacrifice.
The world to-day seems to be in the agony of its crucifixion, there
is more sorrow, more trouble, more fears and forebodings than ever.
It is so bad that sometimes I wonder if it could be much worse. Yet I
remember that it was out of a darker more evil situation that the
first ray of hope shone. Those that were about the cross thought that
evil had conquered – had got away with it. But there was a garden
in the place where He was crucified and it’s bursting bugs and
blossoms refuted the lie.
England
isn’t going to be the garden you and I want it to be though,
“By
singing Oh how beautiful and sitting in the share, while better men
than we go out and start their working lives at grubbing weeds from
gravel paths with broken dinner knives” This is an old legend about
St Peter fleeing from Rome – on the Appian way he met his Lord “Quo
Vadis” Whither goest thou? - Peter went back and accepted the
cross. - “He that cometh after me said Jesus, and this is no legend
– let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Right
deep down in my heart I know I don’t despair for the world because
in the place where we has crucified there was a garden and it assures
me that in the great encounter with evil God- took steps to ensure
that goodness will triumph – it shall win the day. The empty tomb
in the garden is the greater guarantee of that. But victory waits for
folks like you and me to take up the cross. To set it up willingly in
our own lives and let it’s points pierce our complacency and smug
satisfaction. Our easy going selfishness and unconcern for anything
but out own pleasure and comfort.
Yes!
The kingdom of God awaits your choice to take up the cross. From the
says of the early persecution the sign of the cross was the
secret-mark of the Christians. It still is. No life can be truly
Christian without it.
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