On Easter Sunday, we contemplate with wonder the empty tomb, and the circumstances of the Resurrection transport us all the way back to Genesis. That tomb is situated in a garden, just as the history of the human race began in a garden.
Mary Magdalene mistakes Our Risen Lord for the gardener. Adam’s task had been to tend the garden which God entrusted to his care. Where Adam’s disobedience brought expulsion from that first garden, Our Lord defeats Satan on the Cross and, in the garden close by, reverses the consequences of Adam’s rebellion, the most terrible of which is death. All of this makes Christ the New Adam, whose Resurrection marks a New Creation which promises us an eternity infinitely more wonderful than anything to be found in the paradise of Eden.
