The Garden

I grew up on a farm, and my Mother always planted a large garden.  I loved eating all the wonderful things from the garden, but I was never very excited about pulling the weeds!!  But the world's first garden must have been a beautiful garden, for God, Himself, had planted it.  In Genesis 2:8, we read:
     "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed."  And God's Word says -- "every tree was pleasant to the sight"!  There was also a lovely river "to water the garden", and best of all -- God was there!

The Lord God often walked in the garden in the cool of the day to fellowship with Adam and Eve.  But one day God found that "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden."  What a sad day it was, for sin had entered  and Adam and Eve had to be cast out -- leaving God alone in the garden.

Many years later, Jesus entered another garden with His disciples.  It was the garden of Gethsemane.  God's Word tells us He was "withdrawn from them about a stone's cast."  The disciples soon fell asleep, and once again the Lord God was left alone in the garden.  Here, in this garden, He faced the death He had pronounced long before in that first garden.

But there was yet another garden where He must be alone, for we read in John 19:41-42 -- "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was  never man yet laid.  There laid they Jesus . . ."  and I like these words that I read in a little devotional:
     "God had walked alone in the first garden, seeking His own.
       He knelt alone in the second garden, praying for His own.
       He was buried alone in the third garden, having died for His own."

However, I am so thankful for the blessed reality of knowing that death could not hold him, and in the words of Robert Lowry:
     "Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er His foes
He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His saints to reign!"  Praise the Lord!  May God bless you as we prepare our hearts for the coming Lord's Day!