Garden Harmony: John’s Portrait of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

It is appropriate at this time of year to show how a canonical approach to the Bible helps us to better understand the death and resurrection of Jesus (John 18-20). John painted his account of the passion of Jesus with a garden as the setting and background of the entire picture. Jesus was arrested, crucified, buried, and raised from the dead inside of a garden.

Once we put on canonical lenses, our eyes can better observe and interpret the portrait of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the fulfillment of God’s redemptive program first announced in a garden (Genesis 3).

The Garden in John

When John painted the passion of Jesus in John 18-20, he framed the entire story within a garden.  A garden acts as bookends on either side of the story and is a canonical clue. The passion events occur inside a Garden. Jesus is arrested in a garden, dies in a garden, is buried in a garden, and is raised in a garden. And when he mentions the garden, unlike Matthew and Mark, he intentionally omits the word “Gethsemane” on purpose. The focus is continually on the garden. Let’s examine in detail how John framed the passion of Jesus.

Jesus is Arrested in a Garden

Observe Jesus’ arrest. The story includes Judas, now indwelt by Satan, (John 13:26-27; 6:26-27) and an armed company entering into a garden:

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Cedar Brook in the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered…Then Judas took the squad of soldiers with their commanding officer and the officers of the Jewish leaders arrested Jesus and tied him up.  John 18:1, 12. 

Think it over. Jesus crosses a brook and enters a garden with his disciples (portrayed in John’s Gospel as his bride; 2:1-11). Satan, disguised as Judas, also enters the garden. Sound familiar? We have a garden, a man and his bride, and Satan approaching in disguise with evil intentions.

Jesus is Crucified in a Garden

Observe how John describes the crucifixion of Jesus as occurring in a garden:

Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified. John 19:41

Only John informs us that Jesus was crucified and died in a garden. John is reminding us of an earlier death that occurred inside of a garden; the death of Adam and Eve.

Jesus is Crucified in the Middle of the Garden

 Observe that Jesus is depicted as being in the middle:

There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle (meson). John 19:18

 Our English versions say, “with Jesus between them.” This masks over John’s choice of the word “middle”, a term that echoes the exact same phrase found in the description of the tree of life in the middle of the first garden (meson, Genesis 2:9). In effect, John depicts Jesus in the middle of the two felons and in the middle of the garden.

And at the foot of the cross (a tree) in the middle of the garden, stand a man and a woman (19:25-26). Sound like anything you’ve read before?

Jesus is Buried in a Garden

Observe how John, unlike the other evangelists, describes Jesus’ burial tomb in a garden:

 And in the garden, there was a new tomb in which no one had been laid. John 19:41

John associates the new tomb with life rather than death. This was the case with the first garden in Eden. No one had ever been laid there for burial. The garden was associated with life, not death. But that first garden did become a tomb.

Jesus is Resurrected in a Garden

 Observe Jesus’ approach to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning in a garden:

Jesus said to her: Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you searching for? Because she thought he was the gardener[1], she said to him: Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him.  John 20:15

 Mary Magdalene is the first person to encounter the risen Jesus. And because Jesus’ tomb was located in a garden, she thought that the stranger who asked her why she was crying was the gardener. She is correct, ironically.

The original gardener in the first Garden was the LORD, God’s Firstborn, the one who planted the garden, cultivated it, and walked in it (Genesis 2:8-9; 3:8; John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-16; Hebrews 1:2). The resurrected Jesus, awakened from the sleep of death, risen out of the ground in a garden on the third day (like the trees which rose out of the ground on the third day), returns to a garden as the divine gardener and walks in it, and calls Mary “woman,” the same name that Adam used of Eve (“woman”) when he awoke from sleep (Genesis 2:23).

Recap: A Garden Frames the Passion of Jesus

Let’s recap what we have observed. John[2] paints a picture of the passion of Jesus (arrest, death, burial, and resurrection) occurring in a garden setting. The garden is the frame inside which the events unfold. So, we see a garden, a man and his bride, and the serpent in disguise. The man willingly allows himself to be arrested, protects his bride, is crucified in the middle of the garden, is buried, and raised to life in the garden.

How are we to interpret the Garden Frame?

How do we interpret the garden frame around which John used to paint the picture of Jesus’ passion? What message is John trying to communicate to us as descendants of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman in a garden?

I have only pointed out how the garden frames the story. But in-between the frame, John also painted multiple canonical clues that echo the events in the first Garden (Genesis 1-3). So, the entire painting of Jesus’ passion is brushed with reminders of Eden, the first garden. Why not, then, re-read the entire story like a detective and spot the canonical clues that show how John 18-20 is, in fact, a reenactment of Genesis 2-3?

Now to our question of interpretation: by donning a pair of canonical glasses, we are able to pick up the interpretive clues that John used to paint his masterpiece of Jesus’ passion. 

John shows us that the garden death and resurrection of Jesus directly impacts what transpired in the first garden with our parents.

Satan, disguised as a serpent, entered the first Garden and offset the balance of trust between our parents and the Lord God. The consequence of that failure of faith was a death sentence for the human race. Adam and Eve were expelled from access to the tree of life and God’s presence.

So, John is providing a canonical lens through which to show us how the substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection to life of Jesus, a better Adam and better bridegroom, overturned humanity’s death sentence and reversed the effects of Adam’s sin. Jesus’ empty cross, in the middle of the garden, is now the new tree of life from which sinners may, by faith in Him, pick the fruit of eternal life.

 In him was life, and this life was the light of humanity. John 1:4

I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10b.

But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. John 20:31

Thank you for reading.

NOTES:

[2] John is the only evangelist that describes the passion of Jesus as occurring in a garden locale. He does not describe the garden as “Gethsemane” (although it certainly was).