Jesus the Creator, Carpenter, Gardener, and KingSýnishorn

Two days ago, we looked at Jesus’s appearance as the creator God at the very beginning of time. Yesterday, we saw Jesus as carpenter, born into the family business that first Christmas morning. Today, in John 20:11-16, we see Jesus being mistaken for a gardener after his resurrection.

You’ve probably read today's passage dozens, maybe hundreds of times. And if you’re like me, you’ve likely always thought of the fact that Mary mistook Jesus as “the gardener” as some odd but insignificant detail of Scripture.

But no word of Scripture is placed there by accident, and as renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright recently revealed to me, this detail is no exception. It appears that John is pointing to something quite remarkable indeed.

To see it, we must first go back to Genesis where God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden to work and “fill the earth.” Sin did not yet exist, but work did, making their work of gardening worship in its purest sense. 

But of course, just a few verses later, sin does enter the world. Work is still worship, but it is now also arduous. Sin has also ushered in the necessity for Jesus to come that first Christmas Day and sacrifice his life three decades later.

But everything begins to change on Easter. The resurrection resets the world as Jesus inaugurates the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in his first appearance to humanity post-resurrection, Jesus reveals himself to Mary looking like a gardener. Why? Here’s what Wright says in his terrific book Surprised by Hope: “In the new creation, the ancient human mandate to look after the garden is dramatically reaffirmed as John hints in his resurrection story, where Mary supposes Jesus is the gardener. The resurrection of Jesus is the reaffirmation of the goodness of creation,” and I would argue, work itself.

By appearing as a gardener, Jesus is deliberately pointing us back to Adam and Eve, the world’s first gardeners and workers. He’s showing us that our work as citizens of his coming Kingdom is not just about “saving souls” or helping more people gain entrance to the Kingdom (as important as that work is). Jesus is showing us that it is time to garden again, working to till the earth—to “fill the earth” with signposts to the Kingdom that began to spring to life that first Easter morning.