“In
the beginning when God created the heavens & the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters.” And
so, the beginning begins…
After the beginning of everything, a
chapter later we read of God planting a garden. And in the garden, God places a man –
named Adam – Adamah – the earth – humankind. The human isn’t placed in the garden
to simply lounge around on a hammock, but is given the responsibility of
partnering with God in caring for creation. He is to till the garden and keep
it – he’s the gardener. So far so good. God’s plan for
creation is humming a long just fine. But
then we read further…
The man and the woman reach out and grasp for God’s position. They misuse their position as
stewards of God’s good creation. They become sinners and immediately
their relationship with God, with each other, and with creation is damaged
beyond repair – at least beyond their ability to repair it. They are banished from the garden and the brokenness of humanity goes from bad to worse - to even badder to
worser…
The
condition of humanity is so bad, that in Genesis chapter 6, we read that God
will de-create – he will return creation to its primordial state of chaos –
that formless void we read about in Genesis 1. The chaos waters, the sea has cleansed creation. God de-creates, in order to re-create. But soon, his renewed creation is
need of renewal once more. And in Genesis 11, we discover that
mankind is once again grasping for God’s position. Rather than trusting God to come to
them, to dwell with them, they build a tower to reach into the heavens – to reach
God – to grasp for God. So, what’s the solution?
God
calls a man, Abram, Abraham as he's later known, through whom all the families of the earth will
be blessed. From Abraham came Isaac and from Isaac, Jacob (Israel). And through the long and winding and mostly broken story of Israel came the day when God acted decisively to
renew and restore his creation for good.
We begin with the story of creation in
Genesis. And we begin again with God’s story of
new creation in the gospel of John.
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things came into being through
him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
As we read further in this story of new
beginnings and new creation we arrive at a garden, where the dead body of
Jesus is laid to rest. Just as God rested on the 7th
day of creation, here, on the 7th day of the week, the Sabbath, God the Son,
rests in the garden tomb. But Sunday morning was a new day –
the first day of the new creation and the garden tomb was found empty!
John 20:11-18 states, "But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.' When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman why are you weeping?' Whom are you looking for?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni!' (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'; and she told them that he had said these things to her.'"
The first thing we notice in this
story are the tears of Mary. Tears are so much a part of our world. Weeping, wailing, sobbing – lamenting
the brokenness of this life! We see it all around us. On the nightly news, for times too many to count, we see parents huddled in a circle, sobbing and praying, as another shooter enters a school and ends lives and sends other lives
spiraling into chaos. We see it in hospital waiting rooms when the diagnosis is not good. The eyes well up and tears trickle down
cheek bones. Over a funeral casket a daughter
weeps over the loss of a father. A mother wails over the loss of a son. A brother sobs over the loss of a
sister. Moments of crisis bring us to our
knees. But even the mundane of this life can be sad. Sometimes the façade of cynicism
temporarily lifts from our faces and we shed a tear at the shear absurdity - at the nihilism of the world understood at the surface level of social media and superficial shock and awe.
It’s a broken world full of broken
relationships. A world of broken marriages. Of broken families. Broken friendships. Broken promises. Broken people. Tears are very much a part of the old
creation. But tears are not final. Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning. Joy came on the first morning of the
new creation.
Mary
bent over & looked into the tomb and she saw the two angels. Theirs was a simple question: “Why are you
weeping?”. The angels could see something she
couldn’t see. They saw Jesus, standing behind her. And he asked her the same question: “Woman,
why are you weeping?”. And then the next, more crucial
question, “Whom are you looking for?”. She was looking for Jesus, but she would encounter
him in ways she wasn’t expecting. Just as Caiaphas had spoken better
than he understood in John chapter 11 when he predicted Jesus’ death and just
as Pilate had spoken better than he understood in chapter 19 when he proclaimed
Jesus the Man and the King, so Mary, imagined better than she
understood. She mistook Jesus for the gardener. And yet he was the gardener – she was
standing before the world’s ultimate gardener – the gardener of God’s new
creation! As the first Adam had been placed in
the garden to be a steward of God’s creation, so, Jesus the true Adam, the true
human, had become the steward of God’s new creation.
Mary’s tears could be turned into
laughter. Mary’s sadness could be transformed into joy. The tomb was empty because Jesus was
risen and God’s new world had been launched through his death and resurrection!
Things had changed. Mary had to relate to Jesus in a new
way. He was now the risen Lord, soon to
be exalted to the Father’s right hand. And though he would be, in a sense,
more distant from Mary through his exaltation, he would in another sense, be closer, more intimately involved. The broken relationships of the old
creation had been transformed in the new. Mary was told to go to Jesus’
brothers. They were no longer just his
disciples. They were no longer just his friends. Now they were his brothers. Jesus had welcomed them into his
family. And God the Father was no longer only
the Father of Jesus the Son, but also the Father of Mary and all of Jesus’
followers – their God and their Father! Mary had good news to tell – she had good
news to share. And she did not hold back. She proclaimed to the others, “I
have seen the Lord!" The new creation had been launched on
that Sunday morning!
The God who created humanity in his
image and who has been working for millennia to restore humanities’ broken
relationship has bridged the gap between God and humankind for all time. The renewal of all things has been inaugurated
through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the new creation hasn’t yet been
brought to completion. We still see the broken world around us and our own lives still need repairing. There’s a tug-of-war going on between
the old and the new. We see it played out on our smart
phones and our smart TVs. We see it played out in our local and national politics, and in our local and national newspapers. We see it played out in our schools, in our places of work, in our families, and in our own hearts and minds. The creation groans and longs to be
set free from its bondage to decay. We too long for the redemption of our
bodies – there’s still work to be done. But let’s not forget that we already
experience the new creation now. We have been given the down payment, the gift of God’s own Holy Spirit. And because the tomb is empty because like Mary, we’ve encountered
the risen Jesus, through faith, we trust that he who
began this good work, will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ!
The first seven verses of Revelation
21 remind us that our hope of new creation remains secure: “Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away, and the sea was no more. And I saw
the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband. And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among
mortals. He will dwell with them; they
will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear
from their eyes. Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed
away.’ And the one who was seated on the
throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’
Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and
true.’ Then he said to me, ‘It is
done! I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end. To the
thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”
And the last two verses of our
Scripture state: “The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am
coming soon.’ Amen. Come Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the
saints. Amen.” - Shay
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