Christ the Gardener
On Lancelot Andrewes's Easter Sermon, 16 April 1620
On that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene stands weeping outside the empty tomb, steadfastly refusing to give up on her Saviour, even when all the others have. In her desperation, she confuses the risen Jesus for a gardener. At first glance, this seems a simple error—born of grief and confusion. Yet as Lancelot Andrewes reminds us in his Easter sermon, this “mistake” held a deeper truth:
She did not mistake in taking Him for a gardener; though she might seem to err in some sense, yet in some other she was in the right. For in a sense, and a good sense, Christ may well be said to be a gardener, and indeed is one. For our rule is, Christ as He appears, so He is ever; no false semblant in Him.
1. A gardener He is then. The first, the fairest garden that ever was, Paradise. He was the gardener, it was of His planting. So, a gardener.
2. And ever since it is He That as God makes all our gardens green, sends us yearly the spring, and all the herbs and flowers we then gather; and neither Paul with his planting, nor Apollos with his watering, could do any good without Him. So a gardener in that sense.
3. But not in that alone; but He it is who gardens our “souls” too, and makes them, as the prophet [Jeremiah] saith, like a “well-watered garden”; weeds out of them whatsoever is noisome or unsavoury, sows and plants them with true roots and seeds of righteousness, waters them with the dew of His grace, and makes them bring forth fruit to eternal life.
But it is none of all these, but besides all these, no over and above all these, this day if ever, most properly He was a gardener. Was one, and so after a more peculiar manner might take this likeness on Him. Christ rising was indeed a gardener, and that a strange one, Who made such a herb grow out of the ground this day as the like was never seen before, a dead body to shoot forth alive out of the grave.”
His sermon is well-worth reading in full. Next to John Chrysostom’s famous Easter oration, it’s my favourite paschal sermon.
Easter is the dawn of new creation. Christ the Gardener tends not only the earth but the very soil of our hearts. He plants hope where there was despair, love where there was malice, life where there was death. His resurrection is the first bloom of eternal spring, the sign that the cold of sin and death has given way to the warmth of grace and glory.
This day, we rejoice not only that Christ lives, but that He labours—in us, through us, around us—making all things new. We’ve only to open the garden of our souls to his care, so he can weed, water, and bring forth fruit worthy of him, our Risen King.
A blessed Easter to all.