'Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choicest fruits'I enjoyed celebrating Easter with my family just over a week ago and finally we are starting to see the beginnings of Spring here in Scotland. It always fills me with a sense of hope to see the first signs of new life and rebirth after a long, cold winter. My own garden is looking a bit forlorn at this time of year but it's nice to start thinking about what to plant and how to spruce it up a bit for the Spring and Summer months.
The theme of gardens in the Bible has also been very much on my mind recently as I began the year studying and drawing the nine fruits and spices of the Shulamite bride's garden, listed in chapter four of Song of Songs. Here's some of my sketchbook work: pomegranates and a henna bush with a little sparrow perched in its branches.
The beautiful poetic imagery of the Song of Songs garden points us back to the perfect garden paradise of Eden where God walked with man in the cool of the day (Genesis 3: 8-10). It also prophetically points us forward to the garden of our hearts where, once again, God walks with us as He tends and cultivates the ninefold fruit of the Spirit within. He is the divine gardener (John 15:1).
At this time of year, as Easter approaches, I am also thinking of other gardens. The Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus, in anguish, sweated drops of blood (Luke 22:44) and the borrowed garden tomb where He was buried (John 19:41).In John 20:15 there is an account of Mary Magdalene standing outside this empty garden tomb on the very first Easter Sunday. I imagine that through her tears and her intense sorrow she is unable to recognise the humble, unassuming figure standing before her. Instead, she thinks he is only the gardener. It’s not until she hears the familiar voice of her Lord calling her by name that she realises it is Jesus. I find it so interesting that, after His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus chose to appear first to Mary outside the tomb, in the garden where she mistook Him for the gardener…As the church, His Bride, we can now say with joy that He has truly come into His garden (Song of Songs 4:16 - 5:1).
I wanted to share with you this wonderful poem called God's Garden by Dorothy Frances Gurney, as it beautifully encapsulates the importance of the garden in the Easter message.
God's Garden
THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.
So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.
And I dream that these garden closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.
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.
For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
and the soul of the world found ease.
by Dorothy Frances Gurney