Christ As The Gardener

Christ As The Gardener

"She turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master." (John 20:14-16).

In the days immediately after the resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples in many forms. And that is what He is always doing to men and women in our own time. He appears in a different form to every one of us. To some He comes as He came to the disciples in the storm at night, when they thought he was a spirit and cried out with fright. There are many people to whom Christ now appears to be only a ghost to haunt them on the stormy voyage of life. If they would but listen to Him, however, they would hear Him saying as of old, "Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid."

To some Christ comes as a deliverer. Their sense of bondage to sin is so keen that the supreme cry of their hearts is for some one strong enough to unlock the prison doors and spring back the great iron bolts that hold fast the dungeon walls of their prison. To such Christ comes as the liberator to set them free, and they ever think of Him as a heroic Saviour. Others there are, whose souls have long been hungry and starved for hope and sympathy and love, to whom Christ comes as does the harvest after an Indian famine, with abundance of bread. Jesus to them is the bread of life; they feed upon the bread sent down from heaven. Still others, like Paul, are smitten down by the light at noonday; by the glory of that Light which is greater than the brightness of the sun, and ever after, looking backward to the old days of blindness and darkness, Christ seems to them to be the light-bringer.

Christ comes to many in childhood with the tenderness of a shepherd who carries the lambs in his bosom. A little boy who had been accustomed to seeing every day in his play room a picture of the Good Shepherd carrying a little lamb in His arms was confronted with the picture of the Madonna and her Child. He looked up into my face and asked, "Is that the Good Shepherd when He was a baby?" There are many to whom Christ comes as naturally as that, and who are led on through all the days of childhood by His gentle spirit, who never know what it is to stray away from the Shepherd's side. There ought to be many more than there are of that class. I doubt if Christianity, or rather the Christian church, is acting with so little wisdom at any other point as it is in relation to children. Our children should be consecrated to Christ in infancy and be given over to His care and training with never a thought of a period for sowing of wild oats which must be uprooted again in penitence and sorrow. Isaiah says, "Peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near," and if we do our full duty by childhood the overwhelming majority of our children reared in Christian homes will be kept ever near to the side of the Shepherd Christ.

But I wish especially to call you attention to the form in which Christ appeared to Mary at the sepulcher. Joseph's tomb, where Christ had been buried, was in the midst of a garden; and when Mary turned about and saw Jesus clothed in the ordinary garb of a gardener - she thought He was the gardener. What purpose Christ had in thus appearing to her we do not know, and yet we surely do not in any way distort Scripture meaning by studying this figure as Him. In one of His parables He especially sets Himself forth as a gardener. He tells the story of a certain man who had a fig tree in his vineyard; and this man came and sought fruit year after year, but the tree was always barren and fruitless. So there came a day when he said to the gardener, "I have been coming here for three years to taste the figs on this tree and have never found any. Cut it down!" But the gardener had sympathy for the tree and pleaded for it. I think we can take that parable as illustrating Christ's gardening in human hearts. There is a sense in which we are all trees in the vineyard. Some of us are barren trees; but sends His rain upon the just and the unjust, and the sinful man receives the blessings of God, giving opportunity and privilege for every good thing to come into his life, the same as does the righteous. Not one of us is so poor and barren in moral and spiritual inheritance but that it is possible for us to bear fruit unto God if we yield ourselves completely to the Heavenly Gardener.

Just think of some of the human plants that grew in Christ's garden when he was here on earth; a man who had a whole legion of devils; and Mary Magdalene, who had seven; and fretful and peevish Martha; an old beggar, Bartimaeus, blind since he was born; Zacchaeus, the tax-collector; a handful of fishermen without education or standing. Jesus picked up people like that, and how they blossomed under His hands! They have grown into the heart of the world for eighteen hundred years, and the sweet fragrance of their Christian graces bless humanity in every land.

What Christ did for these people He can do with us. In soul-gardening it is possible for the gardener to impart His own nature to the sensitive human plant under His care. Our lives receive the gracious influences of His own life divine spirit. We become like Him. We lose the characteristics of the lower life and begin to show the indications of the nobler and sweeter life of Him. How can any intelligent man or woman refuse to yield the heart to this Divine Gardener?

There is something very touching in the parable of the unfruitful fig tree, where Christ pictures Himself as interceding in behalf of the unfruitful soul. How many years has God been coming to your life seeking in vain for the fruit of conduct which He had a right to expect. Bring this home to your own heart, and think of that barren tree as yourself. Hear God saying, "Cut down the unfruitful tree. Cut down this useless life. And then hear Jesus as He pleads for you: "Let him alone one year more; let Me fertilize his soul with the preaching of the gospel, and the pleading of the Holy Spirit; perhaps he will turn and repent, and all will be well; but if he does not, than shall he be cut down." You may be in that period now. Possibly it is already drawing near to a close. It is a solemn thought. But, thank God, the probation has not yet ended, and this very hour you may by the divine grace and the forgiving mercy of Christ be transformed in your inmost nature so that you will begin to bear fruit unto righteousness.

~Louis Albert Banks~

(The End)