The Bible - The Complete Book Of The Garden – .

The Bible - The complete book of the garden – .

In my study I have a book called the Readers digest complete book of the garden. To be honest I have hardly read it and my gardening this year has been anything but complete.

Heather has filled in for me as I got busier and busier.

Today is Easter Sunday and it occurred to me that, today reminds us that the Bible, in a profound way is – the Complete work of the Garden.

I guess the Readers Digest book covers all four seasons.

This morning I would like to take four seasons in the scriptures from where we learn God’s plan and purpose from Easter Sunday and how to respond to God in a world like this.

It is a long way back to Easter Sunday but today I want to begin by traveling back in history a lot further than that to the very dawn of time.

In the book of Genesis chapter 3

GE 2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

GE 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

The natural environment for people is a garden – God put us in a garden and we get a description of it being a beautiful place.

Tragically the man and woman, with the encouragement of the serpent, rebel against God and sin by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Sin changes things.

The bible says the wages of sin is death and sin changes the nature of Adam and Eve.

Before they were quite natural in their relationship with God – but now, Adam wants to hide from his God.

This sin has a terrible consequence:-

22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

This moment in the life of humanity has been described as the fall – if we were to consider it a season in the life of the world it would be Autumn –

We came into this garden in admiration we came out defeated and separated from God.

What began as a good story ends in tragedy.

It is like the garden that has been dug and planted and made ready for the season – everything is ready for a great years harvest.

Then it is neglected – the crop is overgrown by weeds.

The end result is one of a complete mess and no fruit.

This rebellion, called sin ruins the wonderful potential that god planned for that first garden.

The second garden we find ourselves in is the garden of Gethsemane.

Between the Garden of Eden and the garden of Gethsemene is a huge amount of Human history – this period finds its climax in the garden of Gethsemene where we find Jesus wrestling in prayer.

If ever there was a winter of despair in Jesus’ life – this was it.

MT 26:36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

Jesus went to the “Garden of Gethsemane” on the Mount of Olives. The garden still exists today, including a number of olive trees which may date back to the time of Jesus. “Gethsemane” comes to us from the Hebrew into the Greek and then the English. Originally, the name meant, “oil press,” and could have originally been an area designated for pressing olive oil.