Originally inspired by Sandi Rufo.
When Christ meets Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, she mistakes him for the gardener. Mary Magdalene’s meeting with Christ is transformed by the knowledge of God given in an echo of the tree of knowledge. In the creation story, God cautions the newly formed humans not to eat of the tree. In this second New Testament, the tree’s power is again offered to humanity in the form of Jesus Christ. However, since we have been exiled to live on our own outside the garden, perhaps we have not learned how to return with repentance. We have the opportunity, through this encounter with Christ, to return to the Godhead and begin again.
The word and person identified as the gardener is the tree of Knowledge and a clue.
In the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene stands outside the tomb weeping. She has come looking for the body of Jesus, and the body is gone. When she turns and sees the risen Christ, she does not recognize Jesus at first but recognizes him as a gardener instead. Perhaps her mind recalls the Garden of Eden in Genesis. It is no accident that this reference is made to the tree of Knowledge by the authors of the bible. Christ does redeem humanity with his resurrection, but only after each of us sees the significance of his teachings and “knows” we are given a new prospect of our own salvation.
Why include that reference to the gardener at all unless the writer wanted us to hear the echo of another garden, another tree of knowledge, another woman, another moment when humanity stood at the threshold of temptation, death, shame, willfulness, and divine intimacy?
The Christ figure stands outside the dark tomb like the Seraphim outside the Garden of Eden, guarding the entrance so that humanity does not return to darkness. The gardener in the Adam and Eve story is the creator; the gardener outside the tomb is also the gardener, yet of a new creation. This new Adam is beginning the restoration and inviting us into a new consciousness.
The church taught us that we can blame Eve for the sin in the world. She was tempted by a desire for knowledge and equality with God. As a result, humanity was exiled and thrown out of the garden with Adam. In the New Testament, Mary stands there as Eve returning without shame, without exile, without the curse of blame wrapped around her body. She is like Eve and still curious to learn more from this Teacher. After all the Snake had said to Eve, “eat and you will be like God”.
Let’s talk about the Tree of Knowledge
This tree of knowledge is not a shrub. It was enormous because it had all the knowledge rooted in time and space. It contained all of God’s thoughts and intentions. Imagine, who wouldn’t want to eat that fruit! (a humble person) Its roots stretched deep into the earth and spread wide beneath the surface, a hidden network containing more than Eve could have ever imagined. The unseen system we forget because we only look at what grows above ground. We do not cherish the knowledge found in the past, present, and future potential of God. Much of the new age thinking today highlights the idea of our interconnections.
The roots from the tree of knowledge are and always have been connected beneath the surface, connected and feeding one another in ways no one can see. Like a woman feeding her children, a root system carries nourishment. If one woman is too exhausted to hold herself up, the roots around her remember and respond. The trunk, leaves, branches, and bark are all systems that sustain and maintain abundant life. A woman’s essence does not survive independently of the trees’ knowledge. The female essence is to nurture and provide care and protection, the way a tree does and the way God and Christ do. Buy BOOK Life in Christ