The Garden

He is risen! 

Amani just beginning to wake up. 

We headed off this morning for a sunrise service at Charlie's house just around the corner. 

It was a beautiful morning together. We probably had about 15 people come and it was a very informal gathering. We prayed together, read Scripture and sang together on Charlie's porch in the garden. Afterwards we had breakfast together and then many of them headed off for music practice before church. I helped dry all the dishes and chatted for a while before walking back to Amani to get the kids ready for church. 

All the practice that the worship team puts in during the week pays off. We lift the roof with our voices and music! 

Outside after church together. 

What a beautiful Easter morning!

We headed off to the pool in the afternoon with Emily, Elijah and Jonah. There was a bit of confusion to begin with about which kids were going but we still had a nice afternoon together with the kids after everything had been sorted out. 

Easter egg hunt in the afternoon with the kids.

It was quite funny while Mary was trying to organise the kids in groups to go look many of the younger ones burst into tears. We're all thinking this is meant to be fun guys! We're not trying to force you to find chocolate!:)

Mary got the older ones to take a small child first and find one for them to eat, which was very cute. 

Sarah, for once eating chocolate and not dirt. :)

Philip

Anna and Tina enjoying their chocolate.

Jonah and Matthew with their plastic eggs full of goodies and their Easter crosses from children's church. 

Judah

Two of my boys, Judah and Joseph, have the chicken pox now. Also Mercy and Rosie have been sick in the nursery too. 

We had a long relaxed evening together, cooking dinner and chatting till later than we normally would.  

My Easter Thoughts

This morning, as I sat on the porch surrounded by Charlie's beautiful gardens, I thought of some other gardens. I thought of Mary standing in the garden weeping for her Lord, I thought of the disciples falling asleep in the garden as Jesus spent hours in anguished prayer, and I thought of the first garden where God walked with Adam and Eve. All these gardens are part of the great redemption story unfolded in history. 

That first garden, the Garden of Eden, where God the Father communed with man and Adam and Eve experienced a perfect loving relationship with their Creator. 

This is the way we were made. 

We crave after this relationship with all that is within us. Instead we chose to reject our Creator, broke our relationship with Him and were banished from His presence and that garden. Mankind no longer experienced that close communion with our Creator as the huge chasm that is our sin separated us from our Father God. We attempted to fix this relationship by bringing sacrifices as a substitute for us, but animal sacrifices are temporary and insufficient. We continued to sin and fall away and no amount of lamb's blood could bridge the great chasm which separates us from Him. 

Fast forward a few thousand years to the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Jesus walks upon the earth. 

The Son of God, the Creator in flesh, dwells in humility amongst men.

Leaving His throne of glory, with all heaven declaring His praises, to eat with outcasts and sinners, to walk the dusty roads with 12 ordinary men, to become a servant to all. 

Here He is, in the garden, falling on the ground in anguish at what He is about to face. 
He is about to face the great chasm.
Before the beginning of time He has experienced an eternity of a perfect relationship with God the Father. He's had only perfect communion within the Holy Trinity. 
Jesus is fully God, and fully man; completely sinless. 
Our against a Holy God, that great chasm, requires payment; requires our eternal death to bring true justice to an eternal God. 
There is no way around this great chasm, there are no excuses, there is no amount of good that can make payment for our sin. 
We need a sacrifice.
We need a substitute.
We need an eternal substitute to take on our punishment of eternal death.
We need a perfect sinless substitute to take on all the weight of our sin.
We need a man to be our perfect representative sacrifice. 
There is only One being ever to exist that qualifies.
Jesus.
Fully God, He is eternal.
Fully man, He is our perfect representative.
Completely sinless, He is able to take our sin upon Himself.
So, lying face down in that garden before His Father, He says, "not what I will, but what You will". 
He knows He is our only hope. 
He is fully aware of what He has to bear to bridge that great chasm.
Not only did He experience the agony of the cross, but He experienced all the agony of what we deserved. He felt eternal death; separation from His Father as God turned His face away and the earth went dark. He felt the weight of all our sin as He became our substitute. 
The weight of our guilt and condemnation, the weight of our separation from God, the weight of the great chasm; upon His shoulders. 
He breathes, "It is finished" and gives up His own spirit as His Father willed. 

On the third day, Mary Magdalene stands in another garden weeping.
Outside the empty tomb, she grieves, for His body is not there. 
She turns and sees a man. 
Not recognising Him, she asks if He knows where the body has been taken.
He speaks her name, "Mary", and she knows that Jesus has risen!
He has defeated even death itself!
The great chasm has been bridged by His own body and blood.
Not only has our sin been paid for but we have been given eternal life!
Our relationship has been reconciled and we can experience eternal communion with the Creator God. 

Today, two thousand years later, I sat in a garden and praised Him for His death and resurrection; for the life I have received in His name, for the relationship I now have with God the Father, because He bridged that great chasm. 

My heart overflows.
I rejoice as I look forward to a heavenly garden.
A garden with a river of life running through it, flowing from the throne of God. A garden with the Tree of Life itself. 
When I get to spend eternity in a perfect relationship with the Creator God, my Father; because He placed the weight of my eternal death on His Son's shoulders. 
When I inherit all that I don't deserve, because He took on all that I do deserve. 
When I am resurrected, because He is resurrected.

(Genesis 3, Mark 14, John 20, Revelation 22)

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."
Romans 5:8-11