The Gardener In The Garden

Scripture: Matthew 20:11-18

Title: The New Gardener

(This drama/sermon involved the speaker dressing up as a gardener and sharing the Risen Story in a dramatic way – looking back at a story from a family that originally served as the gardeners in the cemetery/garden where Jesus was buried.)

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Note: Speaker is dressed as a gardener (Overalls and shirt with boots surrounded by all kinds of different flowers placed in the sanctuary)

I want to share with you a 2,000 year old family story. It is one that has been passed down for more generations than I can remember this morning. It is also one that has over the years come under a great deal of scrutiny in our family.

According to the story it happened in a well-known garden cemetery plot owned by a man named Joseph of Arimathea.

If I got the story right, Joseph was quite a rich man. In those days, rich people would buy a section of a cemetery and make it their own little spot. While some of the plots would be just regular flat cemetery plots others would be areas where a body could be placed in a cave. Today, it would be like a mausoleum.

Anyway, there was this certain cave/mausoleum that hadn’t been used yet. It was here that according to the story a rather unusual man was laid to rest. He was Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, Jesus of Nazareth had become famous for his preaching and teaching. For a little over 3 ½ years he had traveled all over Israel preaching the message of repentance and salvation. He had also become quite popular with the common people for his ability to heal.

I mean there were stories of him healing lame people, people with leprosy, people who had lost their vision and a bunch of other sicknesses. There were even stories of him casting out demons. On top of all of that, it was recorded just a few weeks before he died that he raised a man named Lazarus from the dead.

What was so strange about that story was poor old Lazarus was said to have been dead for four days.

Well, you would think that such a man would be praised as a local hero or asked to join the Temple Religious Committee. But according to the stories that have been handed down through my family the Temple leaders didn’t much like Jesus.

They thought he was trying to replace them. They thought he was trying to replace the Temple and all those sacrifices. It was said that Jesus was preaching something about God wanting to live in people’s hearts instead of them killing a bunch of animals every day.

Anyway, the story is that these Temple guys got Jesus arrested on some kind of trumped-up conspiracy charges. It was then that the story took a tragic turn.

It all happened during Passover Season. The Temple leaders saw an opportunity to get rid of Jesus and blame it on the Romans. They ran with some fake news about Jesus declaring that he was going to be a rival king and do his best to get rid of the Roman government.

Well, from what the family has shared through the years if Jesus was trying to be a king, then he was trying to be a strange king. He didn’t order anyone around, and he certainly didn’t rob anyone. He wasn’t even trying to build an army. In fact, now that I think about it, from all the stories that have been handed down Jesus would have been a perfect king.

Anyway, would you believe that they crucified this Jesus from Nazareth. I mean after all the good that he had done they crucified him. Wow.

Talk about treating someone horribly. In that day there wasn’t a worse way to die. Being beaten up, nailed to a cross and left to die of exposure and/or suffocation.

Well, anyway according to my ancestors who took care of the garden they brought Jesus’s body to the cave/mausoleum. After they did all the necessary preparations they then rolled a big stone over the front of the cave.

Now, here is where it gets kind of funny and yet kind of spooky.

Would you believe that the Romans sent out some soldiers to seal up that tomb and then stand guard over it.

I mean how many times have you seen the police camp out over a grave or around a mausoleum to make sure that the body stayed put. Who is dumb enough to think that suddenly they are going to scratch their way out of a grave or walk out of a mausoleum.