Chapel Blog
The Garden
by John Bishop, Director of Spiritual Formation
Last week we discussed our hearts (our will, motivations, thoughts, and decision-making center). We do the things we don’t want to do and don’t do the things we should do. The Bible calls this sin, and we all must deal with its effects in our lives. Instead of being Wholehearted, we are Hole-hearted. Then we looked at the problem and the solution using the image of “the tree.” This week we want to look at our hole-heartedness through a different lens, that of “the garden.”
There are certain places we find ourselves (or put ourselves) that make doing the right thing much more difficult. There are also certain places where the possibility of something bad happening is much more likely, like South Beach after dark, for example. But we need to be careful giving too much credit to the place (context/circumstances) for how it affects our life.
For example, we all know people who’ve come through bad places but made something very good of those experiences. We have also known people who have been given every advantage and have, nevertheless, ended up in a rough spot. How our heart chooses to direct us, regardless of where we are, is the central issue in navigating our lives.
Consider the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:1-5 says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’””
There could not have been a better place to be. It was literally paradise. Everything was provided in abundance, even meaningful work. There was no brokenness, sin, shame, addiction, natural disasters, just God’s perfect creation. And in that context, Adam and Eve were hole-hearted. Even though they lacked nothing, they felt something was missing. The hole in their heart caused them to exert their will and take what was not theirs, even in a place where they had no need. This one act introduced sin to all of humanity.
Now consider the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:36 says, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.'”
This is the garden where Jesus went to pray right before being crucified. This garden had none of the perks as that of Eden. It was dark. Jesus was alone and abandoned by His friends who couldn’t stay awake. And yet, in this bad place of intense struggle where Jesus had the greatest need that any human in all history has ever suffered, He chose to bend His will to that of the Father’s and give His life so sin could be undone.
The Bible does not waste words. It is not a mistake that the whole story begins in a garden and then starts again in another garden. The lesson is clear. Left to ourselves, we can turn even the most perfect setting into a place of brokenness. We are hole-hearted without Jesus. To become wholehearted, we cannot do it on our own. We cannot manipulate and shift our surroundings to fix our hearts. We need the saving work of Jesus on the Cross - the work that is revealed by His selfless, sacrificial action in the garden.
When we give our lives to Jesus, like He gave His life for us, we get to experience the promise of Scripture in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” We don’t need the garden to be happy. If we have Jesus, then even in the darkest valley we shall not fear.
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.