A tale of two Gardens: From Eden to Gethsemane and back again - Daniel Mosby

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

Brownie points if you can tell me where that’s from. Or so goes the famous opening paragraph of Charles Dickins 1859 masterpiece a tale of two cities. The novel tells the story of Dr Manette, imprisoned in Paris’s infamous Bastile Prison for 18 years and his quest to travel to London to meet his daughter Lucie.

A tale of two cities is often referred to as one of the greatest stories ever told, but it’s a work of fiction. This morning I want to speak to you about what I believe to be the greatest story ever told and it’s 100% fact.

I give you a tale of two gardens.

Turn with me to Genesis 1

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

In my view this is a huge metaphor, we immediately think of the sun causing day and night and leave it at this. But it’s deeper the Sun hasn’t even been made yet. I believe that in the beginning when God spoke light, that light wasn’t litteral light. The light he spoke was the word of God, the logos, he spoke. Jesus. John Chapter 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

The light represents Jesus, the darkness represents Satan and the enemy. God’s first act of creation was to separate the two. Light representing life, the light of all mankind.

Skip on a few days:

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

This is my favourite verse of the Bible, right from the beginning God made humans to be like him. It’s so important it says it twice. Our very design, our purpose, is to be like God himself.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God didn’t just make us to be like him, he also gave us power, in other translations it says he gave us dominion over the Earth, he gave us creation, which he knew was good, and told us to rule over it.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

You can just imagine God sitting back at the end of the day, looking at his work and like an artist admiring his canvas going, yes I did a good job there. That is very good! In both senses of the word it was good, the light and the darkness were still seperted.

Whether or not you take this story literally or as a metaphor doesn’t really matter, what matters is that God made us to be like him, he made the world, delegated authority over it to us and was proud of what he had made.

When God says and he saw that it was good, can I suggest there’s more to it than just God patting himself on the back. What if he also meant good as in the opposite of evil? What if when God looked at mankind he saw us as being intrinsically good, if God made us in his image and God is good then we are too were made intrinsically good. It’s not in the nature of who we are to be evil.

Chapter 2:

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

We were made with the very breath of God, the God who flung stars into space, the God who arranged the cosmos, the God of the fjords and of the rainforests bent down and gently breathed life into us. But what did John say: Jesus is the word of God, the breath of God, is he light and he is life. God took some dirt and some dust and he breathed Jesus, he breathed life, he breathed light into it and made us.

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So we have two trees the tree of life, and life is light is Jesus. Then there’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that represents the darkness. The darkness that on day 1 Jesus separated.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Why put both trees there? If the tree of good and evil could cause death why make it at all? You wouldn’t put a nettle bush in a garden for someone you love let alone anything that could cause death. Yet there it was right next to the tree of life, the tree of good and evil. To help us make sense of this, let’s remember that this a metaphor I don’t believe the Garden was a physical place. The tree of life representing the breath of God, how he made us, and the tree of good and evil representing the opposite. Notice how it’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not just the tree of evil. The easy metaphor here would be the two trees represent Good and Evil but no one tree represents life and the other represents not just evil, not just good and evil but the knowledge of good and evil.

God made us good, he made us intrinsically good, without tasting the second tree humanity wouldn’t even think to do evil, it just wasn’t in our nature. God had separated the darkness from us. What eating from the tree does was to give us the knowledge of good and evil to make us aware that there are good choices and bad choices. That doesn’t mean that we will always choose evil just because we’re aware of it but it puts the option there for us. Another big question is who defines what’s good and what’s evil? Well the tree of knowledge of good and evil also introduced us to the concept of judgement, judging others and ourselves.

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Why did they feel no shame, because they had no knowledge of good and evil, today nakedness represents sex and depravity. It’s only the knowledge of good and evil that has led us to associate nakedness with wrong doing, that has told us it’s wrong to be naked. Nakedness here again is a metaphore representing how we judge. Why don’t we all walk around naked now, because with that knowledge of good and evil people when we invite the darkness in we can then make bad choices to do evil things, and with that knowledge comes judgement of own body image issues and self consciousness and also others judging us. In God’s perfect world without that knowledge no one would do those evil things because it wasn’t in our nature, no one would judge themselves or anyone else and no one would consider that their body might not be appealing to others because we knew we were made to be like God and God is good and God saw us and saw that we are good.

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Here begin the lies, eat from the tree and you will be like God. Holdup, I thought they were already like God, made in his image. Right from the start the serpent, representing Satan want’s to convince us that we’re not like God. That we’re not as good as him. That’s the main way he gets power over us by whispering in our ears that we’re not good enough for God.

What the serpent does here is introduce the idea that if we know what Good and Evil are we can become like God. You might think that the devil is only interested in us doing evil but it’s actually the knowledge of the two that’s hes after. The idea that serves his purpose the most is that we become more like God by doing good things, salvation by works. Because if we believe we can become like God under our own steam then we have no need for God and the enemy can fill that void.

The truth that the enemy tries to steal from us is we are already like God, we are forgiven and redeemed and that there is nothing we can do to change that.

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Whilst humanity was innocent without the knowledge of good and evil, they still had free will, God isn’t into control, if we choose to make a bad choice then he won’t stop us. True love is not controlling. But after eating the fruit, Adam and Eve had knowledge of good and evil, and what’s the first thing they do, do they steal or murder? No they judge someone, they judge themselves and cover up. The knowledge of good and evil makes us judge and degrade ourselves.

Light and darkness cannot coexist, if you have light you therefore cannot have darkness. So by eating from the tree of good and evil mankind has chosen exclude the light represented by the tree of life. Mankind has chosen to exclude Jesus.

The garden a place full of beauty that was designed as a celebration of light became a place of betrayal letting darkness into the world. When mankind ate the fruit they ceased reflecting Jesus, the light of the world, and fell into a state of self-adoration and self-exaltation. If you like the mirror was shattered and could only reflect some parts of God badly.

A classic response here is to be cross with Adam and Eve for ruining it for us, or worse make it into blaming women, but remember this is a metaphor, the choice that Adam and Eve made is actually a choice each of us has made at some point. A choice to let the darkness in, a choice to exclude Christ, to judge others and ourselves and to try to go it alone.

So there we have Eden our first garden. Eden represents the perfect creation, where humans and God worked in the light together perfectly free from judgement. But mankind was deceived by the enemy into believing that knowing the difference between good and evil would make us like God. But knowing the difference actually meant we replaced God with our world system of doing good deeds to earn salvation, ignoring the tree of life which says you are already worthy, in eden humanity stepped from light into darkness.

The rest of the story is now about returning to Eden and God’s plan to help us return to the tree of life.

Now let’s look at our second garden, turn with me to Matthew 26.

36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

God’s rescue plan to break the grip of the tree of good and evil and return them to the tree of life was Jesus. Jesus the word of God, the light of the world, who was God in human form came to Earth to remind us of how we were made to be and banish the darkness forever.

Back in Eden God made mankind because he didn’t want to be alone, here in Gethsemane Jesus asked Peter, James and John to be with him as he considered what was to come. God likes spending time with us, he didn’t say go I want time with angels you’re not good enough. Mankind was enough for him.

47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

50 Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”[d]

Here in Gethsemane began a chain of events that would lead to Jesus being tortured, executed, buried and rising again. The cross was made from a tree, the cross was the fulfilment of mankind eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In thinking that judging others and ourselves would make us godlike we turned our back on the tree of life, judged God himself and nailed him to the tree to die. Jesus was light mankind had chosen darkness the two cannot coexist and the light had to be extinguished.

In Eden mankind betrayed God by eating the fruit, in Gethsemane mankind betrayed God with a kiss. The garden, a place full of beauty that was designed as a celebration of light became a place of darkness and betrayal. In Eden upon eating the fruit mankind stopped reflecting the light of the world and became a shattered mirror focused on self-adoration. In Gethsemane, sealed by a kiss Christ was nailed to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But whilst humanity nailed God to the tree, by choosing the tree mankind also nailed itself to the tree. Jesus and mankind are to face the same fate. A tragic end to a tale that started so brightly.

But that wasn’t the end.

The light shines in the darkness, the darkness of the cross, of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, couldn’t overcome the light of the world. The tree of life was victorious in Gethsemane and once again darkness and judgement were banished.

In the first garden when God breathed light and life into us we became his image, we may have chosen darkness, we may have pushed that light deep down inside but it’s still there. The light shines in the darkness. In the second garden we are reminded that light wins, that life wins, the cross and the empty grave shows us that as hard as it tried darkness couldn’t overcome the light. It reminds us to let out our light. The second garden allows us to begin to repair that shattered mirror and help us to more and more reflect the light. Reflect Jesus. It allows us to begin that journey back to Eden, the journey of restoration.

The greatest story ever told. A tale of two gardens, a tale of two trees, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the rise of darkness and the breakthrough of the light, the fall that made us leave the first garden and the act of sacrifice in the second that meant we could return.

Thanks to Dr John Mastrogiovanni for his input to this word, for a more academic view see his Genesis Factor teaching series and the book “Priesthood of Melchizedek”

Daniel Mosby27 February 20231 Comment