God’s “Yes”

John 20:1-18

Can I just start by saying that the phrase “Jesus died for my sins” is not enough for today? That tired, old phrase comes nowhere close to having enough meaning for today. If Jesus simply died on Friday, if Jesus was just another political threat crucified by the empire, if the story ends with Jesus dying, we are not here today. We are not celebrating Easter. We are not Christians. We are not Baptists. We are not standing in a church building. And you are not watching this on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

If Jesus just died for your sins or for my sins, that is the end of the story.

My friends, we are gathered here on this day—Sunday, the first day of the week—because God said “no” to death and God said “yes” to new life.

God said “yes” to resurrection. God said “yes” to you. God said “yes” to me. God said “yes” to creation. God said “yes” to the world moving forward. God said “yes” to forgiveness. God said “yes” to hope. God said “yes” to peace. God said “yes” to love. God said “yes” to joy. God said “yes” to a new way of being in the world. God said “yes” to the beginning of a new story. The same old story simply won’t do today. Today, we are talking about a new creation.

The gospel writer of John has given a formally Jewish and a new Christian audience all kinds of hints at this new creation. In John 18, Jesus and his disciples are in a garden when the soldiers come to take Jesus away. In John 19, right before our scripture today, Joseph of Arimathea, one of Jesus’ disciples, comes to take away the body of Jesus. Nicodemus helps Joseph prepare the body for burial and Verse 41 says, “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid (NRSV).” They close the tomb with a stone, sealing the body into the earth.

Reading the first chapters of Genesis, which were extremely familiar to this audience, where does creation begin? Where does God touch the earth and speak to creation? In a garden.

So when Mary comes back to the tomb distraught and saddened by the body of Jesus not being in the tomb anymore, she encounters the resurrected Jesus where? In a garden.

Jesus says to her “‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’

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.’”

Friends, the garden is blooming. New life is all around.

Theologian Jonathan Walton says, “Resurrection is the perennial promise of God’s provision that blooms through the concrete cracks of grief and despair.”^[1]

New life is blooming right in front of Mary Magdalene. New life is blooming right now in the midst of our own grief and despair.

Wasn’t that really Jesus’ message all along? God is still moving. God is still working in the world. God is still calling us forward. This is the new, old story. Throughout Jesus’ life, he showed all who witnessed that there is another way of ordering the world. New creation is a possibility. He lived this out until the very end of his life. When Peter pulls out a sword to meet violence with violence, Jesus says, “put away your sword.” That’s the old story. We are bringing about a new story.

The old story, the old way of ordering the world is full of violence, death, and empire. Everybody knew that story all too well. And today, we know that story all too well. The old story is a call to arms and an eye for an eye. You chop off an ear, we chop off an ear. You kill someone, we kill someone. You bomb a building, we send a missile. You send a plane, we send a drone. That’s the same old cycle of violence. But a new creation is blooming.

Jesus shows that new life breaking the cycle of death and destruction is possible. As Rob Bell says, “If a new creation can be birthed on the other side of death, it means that this world is worth saving and everything in it.”^[2] The gardener has been pruning and cultivating, making new life spring forth all along. Of course, Mary thought he was the gardener because he was. In that garden, he was making new life rise. The risen Christ is the gardener and is still gardening in our world today.

Through the power of the risen Christ, people are experiencing new life in the midst of this terrible pandemic. The Gardener is tending to his garden, nurturing us, speaking with gentleness to us, giving us nourishment for today. The Gardener is tending to us through the still small voice, calling our names with the same intimacy and gentleness that he used to call out to Mary. He is meeting us where we are, making us feel as though our roots stretch far and wide connecting us to one another.

Isn’t it interesting that what we are experiencing is happening in this part of our church calendar? In this time in our seasonal calendar we find ourselves in a peculiar situation, grieving the hurt in the world while doing what we can to shelter ourselves from further harm. Isn’t it interesting that we are having this experience during this season of renewal, during this season of new life? The contrast is stark. The contrast of the season and our predicament highlights our calling.

The risen Christ is calling us to be gardeners as well, tending to creation, pruning, nurturing, and cultivating to bring about blooms of new creation. At the beginning of this season at our Ash Wednesday service, worshipers were invited to grasp a handful of earth—a handful of dirt —to remind us of our finitude to remind us of our limits.

But that earth—that dirt—can also remind us of the possibilities. Endless possibilities to create life and newness.

This Resurrection Sunday, you are invited to participate in tending to our garden, to dive deep into all of the newness that life has to offer, to be a part of the new story that is moving the world forward, to be fully alive in this movement that is so much bigger than one individual. You are invited to participate in a reshaping of the world, recognizing all of the good that is a part of creation, and working to prune and cultivate the rest of the parts that aren’t life-giving. You are invited to say “no” to the same old story of Jesus dying for your sins and all of the guilt, shame, and death, and to say “yes” to participate in reshaping, reordering, and resurrecting the world with Jesus Christ, the gardener.

God is saying “yes” to a new creation. God is saying “yes” to a new story. God said “yes.”

How will you respond?

John Callaway

First Baptist Church, Savannah, GA

[1]Walton.