Here in Florida where we have plenty of warm muggy days to contend with; I love to walk early in the morning. It helps me to gather my thoughts and spend part of my quiet time with God before the sun punches its time clock and begins work for the day. The Bible says that God went looking for Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. The word cool can also be translated wind and it is akin to the breathe of God that hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation. Even before God said; “Let there be light!” the breathe of the Spirit was at work. In that same way if we earnestly seek the presence of Jesus in the cool of each morning He won’t need to come looking to come looking for us!
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 1 Corinthians 11:26 -27 ESV
Though the bread given to us may be held by human hands; 2,000 years ago it was given to us first by Him. As we take the bread and cup in our hands, He wants us to remember the marks of the whip, the crown of thorns and the cross. In the same way that Mary worshiped by pouring out the spikenard to prepare Jesus for His burial, we worship Him as we take the bread and cup and remember His cross.
I often think of the spear that pierced His side. Jesus hung lifeless after having given His spirit to the Father. But even as His body hung limp and vulnerable, a soldier plunged his lance into the side of Jesus. It was cruel but it was his job to make sure that Jesus was dead and with no possibility of rescue. And then there flowed out water and blood down His side and onto the ground showing the price that He paid for our sins and yet we easily forget. In the middle of the activities and pressures of life we need to come and sit again at His table. We must tell again the story of the bread He broke and the cup He blessed till the day when we eat and drink at His table in Heaven.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8 KJV
Without a doubt one of the most loved hymns that we sing at our local nursing home is; In the Garden. This week voices that have sung those words for nearly a century joined in on the chorus; And He walks with me and He talks with me.” Then we talked about gardens. A garden was the first place that God made for man. The garden was the place where Adam and Eve could walk with God. In chapter three it says that, God came and walked through the garden in the cool of the day. He called their name and yet because they had sinned they hid.
Then for thousands of years man could no longer walk innocently with God until something happened in another garden: the garden of Gethsemane. There Jesus went to pray and He asked His Father to spare Him from the agony of the cross and yet if there was no other way; Jesus would still drink the cup so that we could be restored.
Just three days later in a third garden Mary came to His tomb. The Bible tells us that it was so early that it was still dark. Like the words from the hymn, “The dew was still on the roses.” Jesus came as the gardener and called Mary by name. There God again came in the cool of the day. There He began to call your name and mine to come and walk with Him and talk with Him because at Calvary He made us His own!
In the Garden
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 He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known
He speaks, and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing
I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling
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