Paradise Lost and Restored, a Redemption Story
This Holy Week as I ponder the Jesus' passion and write our nation is sharply divided as we await Attorney General Barr's release of Mueller's Report to congress. Investigating and finding the truth is under fire. Pontius Pilot's rhetorical question looms large, "What is truth?" (John 18:38) Fears mount as we witness the rise of authoritarian rule and sectarian self-interests gain strength around the globe. This stands in stark contrast to our core values of freedom, justice and respect for all lifted up in democracy. This democratic republic of ours is a fragile experiment and is at risk! The continued denial of climate change is tragic! Now more than ever humanity needs to come together. Our survival as a species depends on our unified collective response to address the disruption and chaos climate change is already reeking on us. Add to all this the devastating fire on Monday at Notre Dame Cathedral, WE COULD USE A REDEMPTION STORY!
John Milton, a 17th century poet polemicist in England during a similar time of political chaos and war wrote Paradise Lost. I confess I am not a Milton scholar nor am I that familiar with this classic, but Milton does give us a handle for what this theological word "redemption" means. The beginning and the ending of the story of humanity is described in Scripture in terms of a Garden (Genesis 3, Revelation 21-22). Milton described our story as Paradise lost, which ultimately becomes Paradise restored. Interestingly, we find gardens recurring at the heart of the story of our redemption. Regaining paradise, restoring the Garden, required the person and work of Jesus, the Son of God. Three crucial events in his passion remembered on Holy Week which worked for our salvation took place in gardens. Just before his arrest we find Jesus on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46, Luke 22:39-46, Mark 14:32-42). In contrast to Adam and Eve's disregard of God's instruction when they in essence said, "Not your will but ours," in eating the forbidden tree (Genesis 3:1-6), Jesus prayed "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want" (Matthew 26:39). So in the garden, with fruit again the focus of the choice, Jesus redirected the primal human response to God. Though his body sweated drops of blood over it, Jesus chose the will of the Father. HINT: curb your self interest, discern and do God's will.
As we follow Jesus through this holy week, he did not avoid his arrest, trial and sentencing to die on the cross. He was taken to the place of the Skull, Golgotha in Hebrew (John 19:17), which we could call an ANTI-GARDEN. This second garden in the story of our redemption is a striking contrast to the Garden of Eden or even Gethsemane. Jesus passed in one night from a lush and fruitful place of living things through the human courts to the desolation of a place known as the Skull. It was the place of Roman executions outside the city walls and away from human habitation. It was the opposite of a garden, a place of torture and death, not life. It may well have been on or near the city's garbage dump where rubbish was burned, which scripture refers to as "Gehenna" a dump where refuse is forever burning, an image of hell. It certainly was a place associated more with waste to reject than with fruit to eat. In this anti-garden, Jesus restored to us the garden of communion with God.
The paradoxes in his final words on the cross are astounding. Hanging on this lifeless tree, Jesus promised paradise, a garden filled with living trees, to the thief who asked for mercy (Luke 23:43). On the cross, the one from whose throne the River of Life flows (Revelation 22:1) cries out, "I am thirsty" (John 19:28). And then the eternal Son of the Father, who lives in the unbroken communion of the Trinity, called out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34), the ultimate cry of human dereliction echoed from Psalm 22:1.
In the anti-garden of Golgotha, Jesus took the full implications of judgment for those who once had paradise in the Garden of Eden and gave it away. And from the position of that forsakenness, Jesus continued the great reversal he had begun in Gethsemane. Though all sense of God's presence or acceptance was gone, Jesus nevertheless said in faith/trust, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). HINT: Trust God when there is no sign of hope. Whereas Adam and Eve hid from God in the days when the Lord walked directly among them, Jesus offered himself completely in the moment when the presence of God felt nowhere to be found. HINT: When you seem completely abandoned and all seems lost, give yourself completely into God's hands.
The anti-garden of Golgotha and the cross was the place in which Jesus said his final words, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Life was finished then, but also, in the glorious turnaround of his sacrifice, what terminated in Jesus' death was the whole cycle of death, decay, and the world's endless subjection to futility, the great reversal!
This is our human sacred story! Paradise lost. Divine remediation! Paradise regained! HINT: Being lost and at risk outside the protection and blessing of the garden walls is not a new thing, but DON't STAY STUCK being lost. It's time for our collective repentance to turn from our destructive warring self-indulgence ways, and because we know the end of the story, find courage to live in community with one another and with God, and the blessing of Paradise restored now.
On Easter Sunday, we will consider another third garden in the story of our redemption, paradise lost Paradise restored!
John Milton, a 17th century poet polemicist in England during a similar time of political chaos and war wrote Paradise Lost. I confess I am not a Milton scholar nor am I that familiar with this classic, but Milton does give us a handle for what this theological word "redemption" means. The beginning and the ending of the story of humanity is described in Scripture in terms of a Garden (Genesis 3, Revelation 21-22). Milton described our story as Paradise lost, which ultimately becomes Paradise restored. Interestingly, we find gardens recurring at the heart of the story of our redemption. Regaining paradise, restoring the Garden, required the person and work of Jesus, the Son of God. Three crucial events in his passion remembered on Holy Week which worked for our salvation took place in gardens. Just before his arrest we find Jesus on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46, Luke 22:39-46, Mark 14:32-42). In contrast to Adam and Eve's disregard of God's instruction when they in essence said, "Not your will but ours," in eating the forbidden tree (Genesis 3:1-6), Jesus prayed "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want" (Matthew 26:39). So in the garden, with fruit again the focus of the choice, Jesus redirected the primal human response to God. Though his body sweated drops of blood over it, Jesus chose the will of the Father. HINT: curb your self interest, discern and do God's will.
As we follow Jesus through this holy week, he did not avoid his arrest, trial and sentencing to die on the cross. He was taken to the place of the Skull, Golgotha in Hebrew (John 19:17), which we could call an ANTI-GARDEN. This second garden in the story of our redemption is a striking contrast to the Garden of Eden or even Gethsemane. Jesus passed in one night from a lush and fruitful place of living things through the human courts to the desolation of a place known as the Skull. It was the place of Roman executions outside the city walls and away from human habitation. It was the opposite of a garden, a place of torture and death, not life. It may well have been on or near the city's garbage dump where rubbish was burned, which scripture refers to as "Gehenna" a dump where refuse is forever burning, an image of hell. It certainly was a place associated more with waste to reject than with fruit to eat. In this anti-garden, Jesus restored to us the garden of communion with God.
The paradoxes in his final words on the cross are astounding. Hanging on this lifeless tree, Jesus promised paradise, a garden filled with living trees, to the thief who asked for mercy (Luke 23:43). On the cross, the one from whose throne the River of Life flows (Revelation 22:1) cries out, "I am thirsty" (John 19:28). And then the eternal Son of the Father, who lives in the unbroken communion of the Trinity, called out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34), the ultimate cry of human dereliction echoed from Psalm 22:1.
In the anti-garden of Golgotha, Jesus took the full implications of judgment for those who once had paradise in the Garden of Eden and gave it away. And from the position of that forsakenness, Jesus continued the great reversal he had begun in Gethsemane. Though all sense of God's presence or acceptance was gone, Jesus nevertheless said in faith/trust, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). HINT: Trust God when there is no sign of hope. Whereas Adam and Eve hid from God in the days when the Lord walked directly among them, Jesus offered himself completely in the moment when the presence of God felt nowhere to be found. HINT: When you seem completely abandoned and all seems lost, give yourself completely into God's hands.
The anti-garden of Golgotha and the cross was the place in which Jesus said his final words, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Life was finished then, but also, in the glorious turnaround of his sacrifice, what terminated in Jesus' death was the whole cycle of death, decay, and the world's endless subjection to futility, the great reversal!
This is our human sacred story! Paradise lost. Divine remediation! Paradise regained! HINT: Being lost and at risk outside the protection and blessing of the garden walls is not a new thing, but DON't STAY STUCK being lost. It's time for our collective repentance to turn from our destructive warring self-indulgence ways, and because we know the end of the story, find courage to live in community with one another and with God, and the blessing of Paradise restored now.
On Easter Sunday, we will consider another third garden in the story of our redemption, paradise lost Paradise restored!
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