A little afterthought about Easter.
I’ve sometimes supposed that when Mary Magdalene visited the tomb (John 20:15) and met the risen Jesus but assumed he was the gardener, that Jesus, in speaking her name, was gently rebuking her for failing to recognize him. How could she not have recognized him after all? … so that, quickly the ‘we always fail Jesus’ and ‘he keeps track’ guilt ethic creeps in and makes us a little wary, wondering if we caused an offense. But did it have that effect on Mary? What if something entirely more wonderful and interesting was happening in that little conversation?
A couple of days ago, Prakash, an MCC worker in India, posted a little reflection, post Easter. The Bible is quite clear that God is the ‘all in all’, the maker of all things, that in God all things consist, and that God is the Love that holds it together and calls all of creation to itself. And if it’s true that this universal Love presence (God) then decided to become personal to us humans (John 1:14) then this little resurrection story twist makes good sense. Prakash is quoting a friend of his, Arvind Theodore, and it goes like this:
‘Mary Magdalene thought Jesus to be the gardener. But was she really wrong?’ (It’s kind of the assumption, right?) In Genesis we witness God the gardener working and speaking life to all that was in the Garden of Eden. The idea of God as the gardener is not new; it has only been neglected and forgotten.
Mary, mistaking Jesus to be the gardener, suggests that when we go through seasons of pain and sorrow our understandings and characterizations of God, though assumed as ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘mischaracterizations’ by the rest, might just as well be the very nature of God. And when we ‘speak to’ that perception of God with a heavy and broken heart, just as Mary did in the form of a question, we are more than likely to hear God calling our name.
Our experience becomes the lens through which we uncover and discover the mystery of the personhood of God, and the Gardener knows each one by name.
It helps, this little reflection. My experience in the evangelical protestant world has tended toward a singular, well taught and often preached understanding of who God is in relation to us; no matter what we are experiencing, that God never changes. Is it possible that deeply rooted belief has tended to make God to seem rigid, austere, hard to please, and looking at us from a distance with often disapproving, folded arms? But if God is whatever Mary needed God to be in that moment of despair, it brings God closer, makes God more personal, less a God we need to please and more a God who finds us … in the garden, near a tomb, weeping … in a fractured relationship, confused … in the loss of a livelihood, afraid … in a dark anxiety, fearful … or in a sun-filled valley, carefree; … and that God, who is Word and Love become personal, speaks our name.
Messy Notes 
This year especially, it has struck me that Mary recognized that the gardener was Jesus because of the deep love with which he spoke her name. She knew that voice. He was the only one who spoke her name with such love.
Some wonderful reflections. Reading R.R this morning we were reminded again about how we have often failed to see God in all things. Thanks, Abe. Blessings for today.