Sermon - The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
Easter Sunday, 2007; April 8
Text:  John 20:1-18

"The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth,
one is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth."

Have you ever heard of this little poem?  It was written by Dorothy Frances Gurney, and the first time I read it was on a little placard in the garden of my husband’s grandmother, whom we called Mam Mam.  I loved walking  through Mam Mam’s garden, sitting on the double-wide swing gazing at her well-tended flowers and plants.  Every year I’d ask her to give me a tour of each bed, asking her the names of what was growing there to get ideas for my own garden.  She knew each flower and plant by name, weeding the beds, harvesting the vegetables, and sharing her bounty at her kitchen table with whomever came to visit. 

When you sat on the swing in her garden, you looked across the yards and saw the church where she was a member and the organist for over fifty years -- Salem Lutheran Church.  Many times we sat on that swing there in the garden and listened to the chimes ringing out from the steeple, watching the sun set in the warm evening sky.  Indeed, I often felt nearer to God’s heart in Mam Mam’s garden than anywhere else on earth.

I think it is very interesting that Mary would mistake Jesus for “the gardener” when she first sees him on that Easter morning.  She doesn’t mistake him for a soldier, or a priest, or one of the other disciples.  Anyone one of those players in the events of the past three days could have been lurking around the tomb that morning.  But Mary looks at the man standing there and sees - a gardener. 

What does a gardener do?  The gardener is the one who takes the seed or the young seedlings and plants them in the ground.  The gardener tends to the growing plants, bringing water when there is not enough rain, pulling out weeds that steal nutrients, and, if there is fruit or grain or produce to be harvested, the gardener carefully collects it, gleans the best seeds for new plantings, and starts the process over again. 

You know, Jesus had a story about planting seeds.  It’s the one about casting the seeds in different types of soil, some falling on rocky ground, some eaten by birds, some choked by thorns, and only the ones falling on good soil grow into a full crop.

So apparently Jesus knew something about the fragility of seeds and the precariousness of life.  He also knew something about the tenacity of life - the power that lies within that tiny seed.  Do you remember the story of the mustard seed that he used to tell?  The tiniest seed that grows into the grandest of bushes, harboring the nests of many birds.

Yes, a gardener knows something about the cycles of life.  A gardener knows that when you take a bulb in the autumn and dig a hole to put it in, and then cover it up, something close to miraculous happens.  After the season of ice and snow and bitter winter wind, the sun warms the earth, and green blades rise up out of the ground.  And soon beautiful petals appear in all shades of the rainbow.

That was how Mam Mam’s garden looked during the spring and summer - like a rainbow had slid down to earth and draped itself across her yard.  She spent many of her days tending that garden - trimming the hedges, cleaning out the dead leaves, picking cherries from the tree and grapes from the vine. 

You know, Jesus had a story about a vine.  In fact, he used this image to describe himself - “I am the vine, you are the branches.”  He talked about pruning the vine to produce the best fruit, and grafting branches onto the vine.  So Jesus must have known something about the process of cultivating life and faith in order to make it as fruitful as possible.  He even told a parable about a fig trees and spreading fertilizer around one to get it to bear fruit.

In fact, if you think about it, Jesus has many, many parables that have to do with the processes of nature.  There was the parable about the wheat and the weeds, the sheep and the goats, the blowing wind, fields ripe for harvest, how seeds grow, and the signs in weather.  And he understood the interrelatedness of all living things.  "Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” (Matthew 6:26).    

Mam Mam loved the birds, too.  She would place feeders out for them and sit on that swing to watch their aerial ballet.  Several years ago, Mam Mam and I were sitting on her swing in the yard, and she told me how she had watched a blue jay sitting on the wire, calling “EEEDEE, EEEDEE!”  And then his mate flew in, alighting on the wire beside him.  Then they both of the blue jays flew away together.  During that visit, Mam Mam told that story to me two or three times.  And I thought to myself, I wonder if Mam Mam is trying to tell me something here.

That was close to a decade ago when she was nearly 80 years old.  Ten years later, Mam Mam continued to live in her house and work in her garden with the energy of someone half her age.  Until one morning this past October when she was out in the garden at the break of day and a tiny blood vessel burst in her brain.  When we came to the hospital, we saw her shoes still caked with mud from being in the garden that very morning.

It was so hard to see her lying on that bed in the hospital those many long days, especially when we were so used to seeing her up and active.  Finally, in accordance with her living will and after conferring with the doctors, the family decided to remove her from life support, because the damage done was irreversable and unstoppable. 

But we decided to have a service of commendation for her before she was removed from life support.  And my husband, Jim, and I were given some time alone with her before the service.  We walked into her hospital room.  She was surrounded by machines pumping fluids into her veins and air into her lungs.  She had not woken up for three days.  Jim stood on one side of the bed, I stood on the other.  Through our tears, we talked to her.  Jim said, “Mam Mam, it’s Jimmy.  I think you can hear me, and I want to tell you how much I love you.”  And at that moment he felt her squeeze his hand.  We looked at each other, and then continued talking to her, telling her all we wanted to say.

Finally I said, “Mam Mam, I want to tell you what’s going to be happening.  You had a stroke and you’re hooked up to a breathing machine, but the doctors can’t fix what’s wrong.  We’re going to be taking the tube out of you so that you’ll be more comfortable.  And it’s going to be okay, Mam Mam.  Don’t be afraid.  You have such a strong faith.  You know where you’ll be going.  You’ll get to see your husband Lefty and your friend Millie and your brother and parents, and everyone who’s gone ahead of you.  It’s okay to let go. You take as much time as you need.  In a few minutes we’re going to bring the whole family in and say prayers with you.  We’ll all be right here with you.”  And at that moment she opened her eyes, nodded her head and smiled.  It was the first time in three days that she had responded in such a way.  And she understood.  She knew.

We had a beautiful service at her bedside.  All of us crowded into that little room and circled her bed.  And I said this prayer for her:  “Almighty God, look on Mildred, whom you made your child in Baptism, and comfort her with the promise of life with all your saints in your eternal kingdom, the promise made sure by the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

After the service, we waited outside while the ventilator was removed.  When we came back in, she held her two daughters’ hands and whispered her final words: “God bless you.”  A few days later, she let go and passed into eternal life. 

Those moments we had with her, when she gave us her blessing for entrusting her to God -- those were resurrection moments for me – they were Easter moments, even in the face of death.  Mam Mam’s faith was cultivated in the church, and in the garden, and she believed God’s promises to her.  And I have to believe that she especially drew comfort from these words:  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). Those words were spoken by The Gardener. 

The Gardener knows the truth of eternal life, and is trying to communicate that to us in as many creative ways as he can.  I would say to Mary, it was no accident that the one you saw put you in mind of the Gardener - not a soldier, not a priest, not one of the disciples - but a Gardener.  This is the one who understands the deep, deep truth that permeates all life - that gives purpose and meaning and hope to those who allow themselves to be taught by the Earth and nurtured by the promises of God. 

Yes, Mary, this is the Gardener.  The Creator of all life, the Incarnation of Love which exploded the world into glorious being.  The one who created the first Garden in Eden and wept tears of sadness in a Garden at Gethsemane, and finally conquered death in the place where life begins - in the garden.

And The Gardener comes to each of us, just like he came to Mary, just like he came to Mam Mam, showing us the first daffodils and blue bells of spring, coaxing us out into the warm sunshine to sit in gardens and draw near to the heart of God, and remember the promise that neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come can separate us from the love of God.

Easter moments are all around us, reminding us that God’s promise of eternal life is true.  It is as certain as the buried seed pushing through the earth, as certain as the new baby pushing through the birth canal, as certain as Mam Mam’s soul hearing the call of the blue jay in the garden that morning, and pushing up into flight. 

A few days after the funeral, Jim’s aunt was walking down the path in Mam Mam’s garden when something caught her eye.  It was a feather.  The feather of a blue jay. 

The Gardener lives!  Amen.