The Garden

John 18-21 When I was growing up, my sweetest childhood friend’s mother had a favorite hymn: “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses, and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

It was as if the Apostle John was thinking of those words as he wrote about the Garden Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, along with his friend Nicodemus. It was there that they laid our precious Jesus in his deadness, to be incarcerated there forever. Yet. the Word incarnate would not be beholden to that incarceration, for, on the third day, He rose to walk and talk again.

Imagine what it must have been like on that resurrection morning. “I can only imagine.” what it will be like when I meet Him face to face. Will I be like Mary, who ran and told, but they still did not believe? Will I be like Mary, who tarried there in the Garden, saw Rabbi face to face, and heard Him speak?

What was it like then, and what will it be like when we meet Him face to face?