Beetroot, tomatoes and a Gardener.

…and so I went to the garden where a year ago I had watered the stringless beans. Now there were healthy-looking beetroot and tomato in that bed all needing water. The grass was yellow but I was told to leave that, the hydrangea had flopped over in its pot but water is miraculous for a plant and this one responded rapidly.

The tomatoes always give a reward for work. A warm ripe one only touched by a moth, bee or other.

The lavender was sending August buds out amongst the dry and I picked a bunch. Interestingly the Hebrew word nard or spiknard by the Hebrews comes from the Greek name for lavender ‘naardus,’ after the Syrian city of Narda. (Spiknard and Nard are very different plants) The Biblical meaning of lavender is purity, devotion and love. They say there are 100 references to nard in the Bible. Here is one.

This post will travel until it ends with… and she thought he was the gardener. But let us start.

Jesus speaking: ‘ Do good to them that hate you.’ Matthew 5:44

It is 6 days before the Passover, and Lazarus and Jesus are sitting at a table. Martha is serving. It is a feast given by Simon whom Jesus has healed from leprosy. He is a Pharisee.

There is excitement in a room filled with people. They were in the very presence of a powerful person, Jesus. The person who had been in the grave for four days and whose sister said stank was there too, namely Lazarus. The plotters were annoyed at the people’s admiration for both and were quietly considering killing both.

Then this happened Mary filled the room with the smell of a pound of ointment of spikenard. All on Jesus’ feet.

‘If he were a prophet he would know what sort of woman was wiping his feet with her long her and crying, too.’ This was a thought bubble in the mind of Simon the Pharisee but Jesus read it.

Jesus speaking: ‘ Simon, I have something to say to you.’

Simon: ‘Please say it.’

Jesus speaking: ‘ There was a certain creditor who had two debtors: the one owed 500 pence, and the other 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave both of them, who of them will love him most?’

Simon: ‘ I suppose the person he forgave the most.’

Jesus: ‘ You have made the right judgment. This woman has done for me what you haven’t done to welcome me… I say her many sins are forgiven, for she loves much, but those to whom little is forgiven the same love little. ‘

Jesus then looks at Mary and says:

‘ Your sins are forgiven.’

The Pharisees who were eating with Him began to say in their thought bubbles: Who is this that forgives sins? Jesus continues speaking.

Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

What happened to the healed leper, Pharisee Simon? I don’t know.

But this is what Mary did:

She joins a group of women who follow Jesus. Luke 8: 1-3

She stands at the cross. John 19: 25

She knows where Jesus’s body is laid. Mark 16: 1-3

On Sunday she is first at the tomb. John 20: 1-3

She mistakes the one whose feet she washed for a gardener and this is what He says to her.

‘ Don’t touch me, for I haven’t ascended to my Father: but go to my brothers and say to them:

I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.‘

From a garden to a garden. It travelled.

Bible references for the story: John 12: 1-9, Matthew 26:6-16, Mark 14:3-11, Luke 7:36-50.

We have a cool day here,

Take care,

Sandy 🙂