In the beginning, God designed a garden. He planted it in Eden with the main features of water and fruit trees. It was so beautiful a place that it became the standard definition of beauty for the Old Testament writers.

Man’s first occupation was gardening. Perhaps this is why so many people love gardens as well as the work of keeping a garden. We are harkening back to and celebrating our origins.

When Jesus was here on earth, He often met with His disciples on the Mount of Olives which is connected to the Garden of Gethsemane. There He could conduct their training sessions in relative peace and quiet. During the last week of Jesus’s life on earth, He walked each evening through this garden to the Mount of Olives and spent the night there. (Luke 21:37; John 18:1,2) Jesus was betrayed in a garden, buried in a garden and discovered to be alive in that garden by Mary Magdalene, who thought at first that He was the gardener.

This reminds me of James 1:21, a favorite passage from The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, by Eugene Peterson:

In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation garden of your life.