An Evening Stroll to the Garden

I stepped out into the brisk air,

blankets draped over my arms.

I was headed for the blooming blueberry bushes.

Frost.

 I dreamed of getting blueberries off those bushes;

the blankets would need to cloak those blooms

and protect them from Old Man Winter's last few attempts to thwart the warming touch

of spring.

The full moon's light made seeing the steps to the blueberry bushes easy.

It's vibrance awakened the realization that tonight was the night.

Long ago,

in a garden like this,

the holy, only Son of Almighty God

knelt on the earth

in a garden.

He was tired, no doubt.

His disciples, hard-working men,

couldn't stay awake from their long days of walking.

But Jesus, having lived a carpenter's life,

the oldest half brother of many siblings,

knew the strains of this life were very small

and nearing completion

to the task at hand.

The Garden.

 Man's first view when God opened His eyes to life

was in a Garden.

Man rejected God in that Garden.

Perfection,

tossed away

like a trampled lily.

Jesus came to a garden in his final hours

his prayers so intense

blood-mingled sweat dripped from his pores.

He knew what was to come.

In the last night of his life He spent his final moments in that Garden

facing the great reality of his near future:

pain,

the intensity of it,

the anger of it's application,

the merciless affliction of sin's retribution.

In a garden where he knelt

amidst the quiet of the night

He did the only thing He could do to prepare for this unthinkable task.

He prayed.

The beauty of a Garden held the silent beauty of God,

the immeasurable love of the Creator.

But beyond the cross and the rejection,

first of mankind

and then of His own Father as He hung with the weight of the world's sin

on that lonely cross,

He saw the Golden glow of a sunrise on another Garden.

The Garden scene of sorrow

would be past.

"But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping:

and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

And seeth two angels in white sitting,

the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

And they say unto her,

Woman, why weepest thou?

She saith unto them,

Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back,

and saw Jesus standing,

 and knew not that it was Jesus.

Jesus saith unto her, 

Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?

She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him,

Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou has laid him, and I will take him away.

Jesus saith unto her,

Mary.

She turned herself,

and saith unto him,

Rabboni;

which is to say,

Master."

John 20:11-16

In the sorrow of the night in the Garden of Preparation,

God planned for the victorious sunrise

of His Son's Conquering Love

 for those who will kneel in the Garden of His Salvation.

 As I straightened up from cloaking the blueberry bushes,

my misty eyes met the stars distant light

and I whispered,

"Thank you...

for the Garden."

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just a bit. :) )