Five days later that salvation came. Jesus was proclaimed a king and God proclaimed victory over sin but that salvation and victory didn’t come by a ruler forcing his way upon others but by a messiah, the Son of God, laying his life down on a cross. The cross is a symbol of God’s strength and power overcoming sin but that victory came through an act of sacrificial love and mercy and for us to understand the work of salvation on the cross we need to understand the back story of Adam and Eve in a garden.
Through our look at gardens during this Lenten season we have learned that God created the world to be a garden where everything fit together in perfect unity and where all of life was good – very good. But Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and follow their own will. They did the one thing God asked them not to do and they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and in that moment – paradise, which means the king’s garden, was lost.
When Adam and Eve missed the mark and turned away from God’s will, sin entered the world, but the story of Adam and Eve is our story. We still fall short and miss the mark of how God wants us to live and every time we do this it is our sin that destroys the beauty of life in the garden. While we long to return to the Garden and dream of life in the Promised Land or the Kingdom of God, we know that on our own, we can’t get there. We cannot redeem the world and restore the garden of God, but what we can’t do – Jesus can. So in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus made the decision to take on our sin and the sin of the world. Jesus was willing to drink from the cup of God’s wrath and experience the divine judgement of sin so that we wouldn’t have to. The sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve was going to be fully paid for by Jesus.
The Apostle Paul said it this way in his letter to the Romans. Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:18-19
The sin of Adam led all of us out of the garden but the faithfulness of Jesus leads us back in. What we lost in Adam was restored in Jesus and this restoration and redemption took place in a garden. In a garden, Jesus choose to follow God’s will and take up a cross to pay the price for our sin but the gospel of John also tells us that it was in a garden that the work of redemption took place. Jesus actually paid the price for our sin in a garden. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. John 19:41.
It was important to John that we understand that the work of redemption takes place in or near a garden. We come full circle here. Adam and Eve made the wrong choice in a garden and life in the garden was lost but Jesus not only made the right choice but he followed through on that choice in another garden so that the penalty for sin could be paid and life in the garden restored.
So the crucifixion took place in or near a garden, but this is not how we usually picture this in our mind. We often think of Calvary as a desolate hillside and barren wasteland far outside of the city, but John makes clear that near where the crucifixion took place there was a garden. It was close enough that for John he places both of these events in a garden.
In Jerusalem there are two places where we think the crucifixion and burial of Jesus may have taken place. The first is in what we know today as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
While today this is inside the city walls, when it was first recognized as the possible place of Calvary it was outside of the city. When Helena, the mother of Constantine, became a Christian she traveled to the holy land and it was around 325 AD that she found the place where she believed the crucifixion took place.
Here is a cross section of the church and you can see how close these two locations are – about 150 feet. It is hard to see how the cross and the tomb could both have been in the same place because of the massive basilica that has built on this site and today the city of Jerusalem is built up all around it, but what we can’t really see here we can see in the other place people have speculated to be the site of Jesus crucifixion and burial.
For a great visual of how the area of Jesus Crucifixion became the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, check out this national geographic website.
In the 19th century scholars and archaeologists started to question whether or not what was enclosed in the Holy Sepulcher was in fact the actual place of Jesus death and burial and so they began to look at other locations outside the walls of Jerusalem. A cliff that resembled a skull was considered a possible sight for Jesus crucifixion because Golgotha means – place of the skull and this place looked like a skull.
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| "Skull Hill" in what is known as The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem |
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| Tombs on the grounds of The Garden Tomb |
as well as evidence of a garden that dates back to the first century.
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| A win vat on the grounds of the Garden Tomb. |
For more information on The Garden Tomb, check out their website.
Whether either of these location is the actual place Jesus died and was buried is not important, what is important is to understand that the work of Jesus on the cross took place in a garden. What John wants us to understand is that what Adam and Eve lost in a garden due to sin - Jesus was going to restore in a garden by his obedience to God. Through the faithfulness of Jesus on the cross, our sin is forgiven, our lives are redeemed and we can once again walk in the garden with God. This work of redemption is what we call the atonement which literally means AT-ONE-MENT. Through the cross we are made one with God or restored into a relationship with God.
As we look at the cross and think about what Jesus did for us in the garden to redeem us there are three important things to see. The first is that the cross exposes the magnitude of our need. Last week we talked about the cup that Jesus struggle to accept and this cup was the cup of God’s wrath – a wrath that was intended for us. This does not mean that God is angry with us in a personally sense. God’s wrath does not include any kind of personal animosity – quite the opposite. God loves us. What makes God angry is evil. God’s wrath is directed at the sin that holds us captive and God knows that on our own there is no way we can free ourselves from this sin or stand up under the penalty of sin. On our own there is no way we can make our way back to the garden or be brought back into a relationship with God and so what Jesus does on the cross he does for us because we can’t do it for ourselves. Jesus does this work in the garden because we can’t. The cross shows us just how much we need God to be our Redeemer.
Second, the cross reveals just how much God loves us. Jesus chose to carry a cross. This was God’s plan and Jesus’ choice. God willingly came to pay the price for our sin and Jesus willingly choose to carry the cross and die for our sin. 1 John 4:10, This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.
The cross isn’t some tragic accident that happened to Jesus, it was what he chose to have happen. God was willing to give himself for us so that we could be considered righteous in God’s eyes and God does this because God loves us and knows that there is no other way. In his book The Cross of Christ, John Stott says it this way: God’s love is the source not the consequence of the atonement. The death of Jesus isn’t what opens the door for God’s love, the death of Jesus is the outpouring of God’s love for us. It was God’s love that led Jesus to the cross so the cross reveals to us how much God loves us.
The third thing we need to see in the cross is that Jesus died for us. It is the death of Jesus, the blood he spilled on the cross that pays the price for our sin. It is the death of Jesus that redeems us and brings us back into a relationship with God. Ephesians 1:7 - In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.
Sin came to us all through Adam and Eve and the consequence of that sin was alienated from God. The penalty for all sin was paid by Jesus on the cross so that we don’t have to be alienated and separated from God. Jesus paid that price and died our death so that we can be made one with God. That work of redemption and atonement is what Jesus did on a cross and in a garden so that we could live in the garden with God. Through the cross of Jesus we find victory. Through the humility of Jesus and the love of God we are saved.
Victory through humility. It is the message of Jesus on Palm Sunday and it is the message of God’s work on the cross. Victory through humility is also the message of our own faith. We find victory when we are willing to humble ourselves before God. We find victory when we stop trying to earn our standing before God or pay God back and simply humble ourselves before God and accept his love and grace. Faith in God simply means humbling ourselves before God’s love so that we can experience life.
Victory through humility also needs to be our life of faith. When we offer ourselves in humility to God and the world – we find victory. When we are willing to humble ourselves and serve God and our family and our community and world – we find victory in life but we also bring the victory of life and the victory of God to our world. When we humble ourselves and serve we are helping bring in the Kingdom of God. When we humble ourselves and love we are helping people see the power of God’s Promised Land. When we humble ourselves and serve we experience victory and the power of life in paradise – which is life in the king’s garden.
Next Steps
The Garden of Redemption
1. What do you see when you look at the cross of Jesus?
• What does it say about our need and God’s love?
• What work did Jesus do on the cross for us?
2. Why was it important to John that we know the work of Jesus on the cross took place in a garden? John 19:41
3. Jesus paid the price for sin so that we might be redeemed.
• How does this “good news” motivate you to live more fully for God?
• What is one way you can work to renew your life?
• What is one way you can draw upon the power of God and help recreate the garden of God?
4. The story of Palm Sunday and the cross both talk about victory through humility.
• Identify one way you can humble yourself and serve God and others.
• How can this service lead to victory for you and others?
5. Read the story of Jesus death in one of the four gospels.
Matthew 26-28 Mark 14-16 Luke 22-24 John 18-21
6. Join us for these times of worship:
• Easter Cantata this afternoon at 4:00 PM
• Maundy Thursday Worship at 7:00 PM
• Good Friday Worship at 7:00 PM
• Easter Sunrise Worship at 6:30 AM
• Easter Morning Worship at 8:15 AM & 10:45 AM
