If Your Knees Aren't Green
A sermon brought forth from John 20:1-18 and Genesis 2:4b-9, 15 preached on April 17, 2022
“Who are you looking for?”
That’s one of the questions posed to us at Easter just as it was posed to Mary Magdalene, who seems beside herself in those first Easter moments—standing next to someone, she’s not yet sure who. We have this strange insight into the mind of Mary.
By all appearances it seemed to her that she was talking to the gardener. For Mary, the empty tomb is terrible news. We know the Easter story. Mary doesn’t. Resurrection is not in Mary’s spiritual vocabulary. No one dead comes alive again. It’s not a possibility. It’s not a category. It’s not in anyone’s spiritual vocabulary in the 1st century. So, we can forgive Mary for thinking that an empty tomb means something much more sinister is afoot. For most of this story, Mary and the others regard the empty tomb as a crime scene. They’re frantic. Their heads are filled with images of grave robbers at-large.
“Who are you looking for?” the gardener asks. It doesn’t seem like Mary is even aware of the gardener’s question. It doesn’t register. Have you ever noticed that Mary’s reply has a tinge of blame to it?
“Sir, if you have carried him away,” she says, “tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Mary’s formulating a case: “It’s the gardener with the shovel in the graveyard.” Mary has a whole conversation with this gardener, a nice healthy back and forth, and nothing. No “aha moment” until…when? Until Jesus the Gardener says her name… “Mary.” Then all at once Easter light flows in, and Mary can see that this gardener she’s been talking to and point fingers at is Jesus.
The fourth Gospel’s Easter moment comes when Mary finally sees the One who’s been standing in front of her this whole time. The moment when all of the disciples encounter the empty tomb? Not buying it. The moment when they see the nicely folded linen clothes? Eh. That doesn’t cut it. Even when Mary looks at Jesus, she doesn’t have her Easter moment. Mary’s Easter moment comes when Jesus says her name.
One of my favorite ways to think about God is from a theologian named Paul Tillich. He suggests that God is not so much like a being hovering somewhere in the skies as much as He is the foundation beneath our feet—our footing. Tillich’s name for God is “the Ground of Being.” God, he suggests, is the steady presence beneath our anxious and wandering feet. God has a quality of always-thereness.
And why “gardener?” Of all the things Jesus can be mistaken for, why would Mary think she was speaking to a gardener? Where did she get that from? Seems a bit strange. But what if Mary thought Jesus was the gardener because he was…well, gardening? That’s the simplest explanation, wouldn’t you say?
When Mary walks up from the empty tomb with her eyes full of tears, wondering what crime has just been committed, she sees someone who’s gardening. We can imagine Mary saying,
“Since you’re the gardener, I suppose you’ve been around for a couple hours doing whatever gardeners do. You must know something about that empty tomb.”
What if Mary wasn’t mistaken? What if the risen Christ had a few gardening tools in His hand? Maybe the risen Christ had a spade in His hand and dirty knees, and can we imagine a few smudges of dirt on His face?
Jesus the Master Gardener. Mary sees the Christ tilling the soil of the garden. Getting the ground ready for something new. This is Christ, the Ground of Being, turning the hard clay of Good Friday death into the rich soil of Easter resurrection.
The famous theologian, Calvin was undressing before his bath time one summer evening after a long day outside with his pet tiger, Hobbes. Calvin says to Hobbes,
“Wow, look at the grass stains on my skin! I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously reexamine your life.”
That line has become a mantra for gardeners everywhere. It’s also the invitation of Easter. In the brilliant light of resurrection, we need to seriously reexamine our lives, because the Master Gardner, the One brought to life after death on this day, is the same one who spoke everything into being from nothingness at the very beginning of time, grew it all in a garden and called it very good. In the resurrected Christ, God is moving dirt again and from it bringing forth life. God has green knees.
Today we celebrate those moments of resurrection. We were brought to life in a garden, and we were given new life in one also through Christ’s resurrection. Easter is that moment when we see that the living Jesus stands right in front of us—that He’s been by our side all along. Like Mary, we just need to hear our names called so we could recognize Him.
But that’s never the end of the story.
“Do not hold onto me,” the risen Jesus said.
Once we recognize Him, we can’t hold Him for ourselves. Christ is not ours to hold on to. Jesus says to us,
“Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
See, Christ comes alive in our lives through relationship. And therein lies the challenge of Easter. The Good News of Easter isn’t for the few. It’s for all. We should borrow words from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians to find out how sow Easter life so the many may know resurrection:
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose. For we are co-workers in God's service; you are God's field, God's building.
Christ, the Master Gardener, tells us to go and tell—plant more seeds, water the ground. God will make much of our efforts. He’s the only One who makes things grow. So, keep planting and watering and trust Christ to do the rest.
The Risen Jesus wants us to dig down deeper into our life together, to plant seeds of resurrection in the rich soil of Christ-community so that we, right along with Mary, who found her way in that Easter garden, can dedicate ourselves to growing in Christ’s Easter Way—to tend to and cultivate the new life that resurrection brings. Friends, that’s the invitation of Easter!
But it’s not a once-a-year invite. It’s a 365 project, because we are 365 Easter people called to get our knees dirty and our lives reexamined everyday in light of the Master Gardener who stands in front of us and calls us by name.
That morning, Mary set out while it was still dark. She is drawn to the tomb by her love and grief. But what she saw was an empty tomb, and then a man standing alongside her, working the ground as if something new was coming to life again.
All praises to the One who made it all and finds it beautiful! Alleluia! Amen.