Fully Devoted: CreationSample

And With That He Breathed On Them

In John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, a woman named Mary mistakes the risen Jesus for a gardener. She didn’t see a gardener and think he was Jesus, she saw Jesus and thought He was a gardener. Why is that significant? Because Mary didn’t show up to the tomb expecting Jesus to be alive. She expected Him to do what dead people do—stay dead. 

By including this detail in his Gospel, John is helping us see something we may miss at first glance. As a Jewish author, John is employing a technique known as the Principle of First Mention. By showing that the resurrection of Jesus took place in a garden, John is calling his readers back to the first mention of a garden in the Bible. Which just so happens to be the creation story found in Genesis. 

John believes that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the rebellion of humanity has been undone, the disease of sin has been cured, and the way to God has been revealed. 

He’s showing us that the path to God was paved by Jesus. So now, anyone who chooses to commit their life to Him can join His mission to bring heaven to earth. 

It also foreshadows the Eden that is still coming. The biblical story begins with God and His people living in perfect harmony in the Garden of Eden, and it ends with God and His people once again reunited in a new Eden. 

The turning point takes place in a garden where a man who was supposed to be dead walked out of His tomb. 

The connections don’t stop there. Later in this chapter of John, Jesus appears before His disciples and does something very interesting: 

And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22 NIV

Remember Genesis 2?

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 NIV

In Genesis, God breathed His breath—the Hebrew word for breath is the same word for spirit—and the man came to life. In John, Jesus breathes on His disciples and gives them new life in the form of the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of a new creation story. Because of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave, the world is being set right.

Journaling Questions 

• Describe the connection between the two gardens we read about today in your own words. What does this tell us about God?
• How does today’s reading help you understand your part to play in God’s story? 
• What do you think it means to be filled by the Spirit of God?

Memory Verse

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 NIV