Eden’s Return

All things are restored in Christ, so Colossians 1:20 tells us. So what about Eden, the terrestrial paradise where all things were once right with God—and where everything went horribly wrong after the Fall?

It would seem that, in the fullness of redemption, Eden should return and be restored to earth. In the Gospels, we certainly see much of the old covenant artifacts and figures restored: a new temple, a new Adam, a new Eve—even new manna and a new ark of the covenant. This is the way it is with God: nothing is wasted, nothing is thrown away. The old is made new.

But where is the new Eden?

The Gospel of John gives us one giant clue. It comes in the account of the resurrection, after a weeping Mary Magdalene has seen the two angels in the tomb and laments her inability to find out where Christ has been moved.

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him” (John 20:11-15).

Notice that Jesus is mistaken as the gardener. Now, in Scripture, especially in the gospels, there are no wasted words. Nothing is dropped in there by accident. Every word has weight. Could it be coincidence that the resurrected Christ—who has by His passion and death once-and-for all restored us to the communion with God that was lost in Eden—is here depicted as a gardener?

Indeed, a number of commentators see this as a subtle allusion to Eden. (For example, see here.)

The original Greek text tells us more about this mysterious gardener. In Greek, gardener is kēpouros. This is a compound of two other words: kēpos (garden) and ouros (guard or warden). Jesus was seen as a gardener, then, not only in the general sense of someone who plants flowers and pulls weeds, but also as a guardian, a keeper, or someone who keeps watch—all acceptable ways of interpreting that second word (according to the Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon).

Does this diminish the connection to Eden? To the contrary: it confirms it.

Recall what Adam’s purpose in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:15 tells us that God put him there to ‘till and keep’ the garden. Some translations read ‘guard’ instead of ‘keep.’

Of course this being the pre-fall paradise, there were no bandits or marauders from which the garden had to be defended. One insightful biblical commentator, the nineteenth century Presbyterian minister Alfred Barnes, explains the charge to guard in this way: “The ‘keeping’ of it may refer to the guarding of it by enclosure from the depredations of the cattle, the wild beasts, or even the smaller animals. It includes also the faithful preservation of it as a trust committed to man by his bounteous Maker.”

Given that this was before the Fall, which introduced sin and disorder into creation, one questions whether Barnes is right on his first point—that the garden needed guarding from cattle, wild beasts, and smaller animals. But we know at least one illicit creature was able to gain entry: Satan, in the form of a serpent.

Now, Christ as perfect man is able to be faithful where Adam failed. Christ, by his Passion, death, and descent to hell has defeated Satan and despoiled his territory. This is the triumph that is represented by this vision of Christ as the gardener.

But there’s a positive side to this. It involves more than just keeping the devil away from us.

Eden can be translated as luxury, delight, and even pleasure, as it is in Genesis 18:12. In Psalm 36:12 eden is applies to our future relationship with God:

O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God! But the children of men shall put their trust under the covert of thy wings. They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure [eden]. For with thee is the fountain of life; and in thy light we shall see light (Douay-Rheims).

So Christ is the gardener. But where is the garden?

It begins on the cross, according to the some of the earliest Church Fathers. St. Ignatius of Antioch, Barnabas, Justin Martyr, and St. Irenaeus all saw significance in the fact that Christ was crucified on a ‘tree.’ Since it was by a tree that mankind was cursed it is only fitting that it is on a tree that the curse is removed from mankind and assumed by the One who became cursed for the rest of us. Then again, the cross has also become a new tree of life for us, from which eternal food and drink have sprung forth.

The return of Eden is gradual and a bit hidden: a cross with a bloodied corpse on it looks like the farthest thing from the tree of life. And today many of us have been called to take up and bear our own crosses. The ugliness of sin and death seems still too much with us. But rest assured: Jesus the gardener is planting seeds of Eden around us.

image: Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

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Stephen Beale is a freelance writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised as an evangelical Protestant, he is a convert to Catholicism. He is a former news editor at GoLocalProv.com and was a correspondent for the New Hampshire Union Leader, where he covered the 2008 presidential primary. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN and the Today Show and his writing has been published in the Washington Times, Providence Journal, the National Catholic Register and on MSNBC.com and ABCNews.com. A native of Topsfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University in 2004 with a degree in classics and history. His areas of interest include Eastern Christianity, Marian and Eucharistic theology, medieval history, and the saints. He welcomes tips, suggestions, and any other feedback at bealenews at gmail dot com. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/StephenBeale1

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