Easter Meditation
Easter Meditation
1 Corinthians 15
“There was a garden.” There are four outstanding garden incidents in the Bible.
(1) The Garden of Transgression. In the cool of the evening when God walked in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were afraid and hid from God. They were afraid, for disobedience had entered that garden.
(2) The Garden of the Confronting Conscience. When Ahab, the king, took Naboth’s vineyard and went to take possession, he was in high spirits. His plan had succeeded; the vineyard was his. But there arose out of the vineyard the rugged form of the prophet Elijah, the conscience of the nation. “Have you found me, O mine enemy?” cried the abashed Ahab (1 Kings 21:20). Elijah was always spoiling his well-laid plans of evil. When you take the garden of evil, you must take it with an outraged conscience that rises up and confronts you. That is the fly in the ointment.
(3) The Garden of the Divine Hesitation. This is the garden of Gethsemane, where the Divine One hesitates at the price of man’s redemption. But if it is the garden of Hesitation, it is also the garden of Decision. “Arise, let us be going”—to meet the issue—the cross (see Matt. 26; Mark 14; John 14).
(4) The Garden of the Divine Overcoming. This is the garden of the Empty Tomb, and the Risen Lord. You and I need walk no longer in the Garden of Transgression or in the Garden of the Confronting Conscience, for our Master has gone through the Garden of the Divine Hesitation to the Garden of the Divine Overcoming. We too can walk in that garden with the Risen Lord.
When the flood of liquor came back after Prohibition, a blatant tourist called out to an old gatekeeper standing at the gate of a lovely park, “Is this a beer garden?” The gatekeeper replied, “No, sir, this ain’t no place for sin, for God done walk in this garden.” Henceforth, we can say: “This world—and my heart—is no place for sin, for God has walked in this garden.”
Keep that garden for God and for God alone.
O Risen Lord, walk in the garden of my life, and then it will be forever dedicated—forever it shall be no place for sin. It is the place of life, eternal life. I am deathless, for my garden is the garden of the Lord. Life lives here. I thank you. Amen.