The Garden
From the Villa Livia
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener."
John 15:1
"The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."
Isaiah 58:11
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Gardens are among scriptures’ most sacred spaces. The story of God’s work with humanity begins in a garden, is redeemed in a garden, and will eventually be completed in a garden. Bruce R. McConkie once wrote that as we engage the scriptures in earnest, “there will come into our minds a view of the three gardens of God—the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Garden of the Empty Tomb where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.” And the final chapters of the Book of Revelation add a fourth — the restored garden of paradise, where the Tree of Life grows once more and healing water flows among God’s children.
In Eden we see God’s intention: harmony, abundance, and communion. Francis Bacon observed simply, “God Almighty first planted a garden.” Humanity’s first breath was drawn among living things, in a world where everything was gift and grace. Martin Luther taught that “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars,” reminding us that creation was
meant to reveal Him.
In Gethsemane we see God’s redemption. James Ferrell noted that “it is no accident that the Atonement will begin, as did the Fall, in a Garden.” Where Adam took the bitter fruit, Christ took the bitter cup; where Eden’s choice brought death, Gethsemane’s choice opened the way to life. The garden that once symbolized exile becomes the place where divine love bends low and bears the world’s sorrow and sin.
At the Garden Tomb we see God’s victory. Here, at an empty tomb by morning light, Mary Magdalene met the risen Lord. The world’s winter ended in a gardener’s voice calling her by name. And in the garden spoken of in Revelation we see God’s promise fulfilled, a tree of life whose leaves “were for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2) and a loving Heavenly Father who “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Rev. 21:4). This final paradisiacal garden becomes a fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise, that the lives of God’s people shall be “like a watered garden, from a spring of water that faileth not.”
Scripture’s gardens teach that God is always planting, always restoring, always bringing life where life seems impossible. Indeed, God plants His children close together so that we may better share this life and bless each other. John Bunyan wrote that Christians, like flowers in a garden, receive “the dew of heaven which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other.” In every season of faith — creation, surrender, redemption, and hope — God meets us in the garden and makes all things new.
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