The Gardener

Because she thought he was the gardener...

The Gardener hung on the cross to atone for the gardeners. On the third day, he rose from the dead, conquering the death and evil that swept through his garden.

He prunes us. He snips away the deadness.

He gives us life. We, the branches, suck nutrients, minerals, and the water of life from the Vine. The Gardener became the firstfruits of the resurrection for which the whole garden groans.

It groans.

We groan.

Someday we will be like the Gardener. We will join in the resurrection. The garden will be resurrected and transformed.

Even now, He begins his transforming work, snipping, pruning, watering, feeding. He teaches us out to be gardeners, how to take care of the garden. He gives us the shears and points. "Remove that deadness," he says. "Take away that oppression, that disease." So we join the Gardener in his work. 

Sometimes we rejoice at the riddance of the ugliness. Sometimes we yank and yank, but the roots have infiltrated deeply, and it takes more work, causes more calluses, needs more tools than we expected. Sometimes we say, "But, Gardener, it still looks pretty."

He hands us the shears. "Remove that deadness," he says. He prunes it from our lives. He prunes it from the lives of the oppressed. He prunes it from the lives of the sick. He prunes it from the lives of the powerful. And he fertilizes and waters and tenderly lifts the buds.

Each of us flower the cross. Each of us, individual blooms, together become a bouquet of new life.

Because she thought he was the gardener...