'In the garden a new tomb.'--JOHN xix. 41 (R.V.).
This is possibly no more than a topographical note introduced merely
for the sake of accuracy. But it is quite in John's manner to attach
importance to these apparent trifles and to give no express statement
that he is doing so. There are several other instances in the Gospel
where similar details are given which appear to have had in his eyes a
symbolical meaning--e.g. 'And it was night.' There may have been such a
thought in his mind, for all men in high excitement love and seize
symbols, and I can scarcely doubt that the reason which induced Joseph
to make his grave in a garden was the reason which induced John to
mention so particularly its situation, and that they both discerned in
that garden round the sepulchre, the expression of what was to the one
a dim desire, to the other 'a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead'--that they who are laid to rest in the grave
shall come forth again in new and fairer life, as 'the garden causeth
the things that are sown in it to bud.'
To us at all events on Easter morning, with nature rising on every hand
from her winter death, and 'life re-orient out of dust,' that new
sepulchre in the garden may well serve for the starting-point of the
familiar but ever-precious lessons of the day.
I. A symbol of death and decay as interwoven with all nature and every
joy.
We think of Eden and the first coming of death.
The grave was fittingly in the garden, because nature too is subject to
the law of decay and death. The flowers fade and men die. Meditative
souls have ever gathered lessons of mortality there, and invested death
with an alien softness by likening it to falling leaves and withered
blooms. But the contrast is greater than the resemblance, and painless
dropping of petals is not a parallel to the rending of soul and body.
The garden's careless wealth of beauty and joy continues unconcerned
whatever befalls us. 'One generation cometh and another goeth, but the
earth abideth for ever.'
The grave is in the garden because all our joys and works have sooner
or later death associated with them.
Every relationship.
Every occupation.
Every joy.
The grave in the garden bids us bring the wholesome contemplation of
death into all life.
It may be a harm and weakening to think of it, but should be a strength.