April 8, 2015

Ayeka?
Genesis 3:9

If you were at the 10 a.m. Easter service, you will recall that my sermon tied together the second story of creation and the resurrection.  In that creation story, God placed humans in a garden to work as co-creator and to till it and tend it.  But the humans disobeyed God, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and were banished from the garden before they could eat from the tree of life.

When Jesus was taken down from the cross, he was placed in a tomb in a garden.  Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb only to discover it was empty.  While standing there in tears, and trying to figure out where Jesus' body had been taken, she meets someone she supposes to be the gardener.  It turns out that the gardener was, in fact, Jesus.

These two stories, creation and resurrection, are the beginning and the end for us.  In the story of creation, humanity lives in perfect relationship in a garden created by God.  But humans disobeyed God, ate fruit from the forbidden tree, and their eyes were opened.  Later in the evening, as God is walking in the garden, he calls out to them, “Ayeka?  Where are you?” but they hid from God because they were naked and ashamed.  It was because of this breaking of trust and an inability to take responsibility for their own actions for which they were banished from the garden.  This is the beginning of the story of God working throughout Scripture to mend that broken relationship.

Jesus' body was placed in a tomb in a garden.  The Gospel of John records that when Mary first saw Jesus she mistook him for the gardener.  On the one hand, she was wrong in thinking he was the gardener.  On the other hand, she was right without knowing she was right.  She met the resurrected Jesus, the Master Gardener, at that tomb in the garden.  And, like God in Genesis, he called out to her.

In an online community where I participate on a regular basis, I pointed people to my Easter sermons.  A person who goes by the name of Shiphrah99 made a comment that has stuck with me:  “Perhaps the hiding in Eden is redeemed with refusing to hide in Gethsemane.”

Ayeka?  Where are you?

In a garden we hid because we had broken our relationship with God and were naked and ashamed.

In a garden Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours be done;” and in a garden Jesus refused to hide from God and from those who would take him away.

We are being called by name back into the garden to eat from the tree of life that is Jesus and back into a right relationship with God.

God is calling.  Ayeka?  Where are you?

Are we willing to answer?

Amen.