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“For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” –– Jeremiah 31:11-13
I know you are out there, all ye with your green thumbs, meticulous attention to detail, abundant patience, and horticultural brilliance, whose artistic medium is neither violin nor water colors. No, the medium upon which your artistic genius is put on display is the raised bed garden. Here, only three sentences into a devotional and I’m already guilty of coveting. I envy your gift and the energy you invest in it. When serving a previous church, we had an elder who was a talented and respected custom home builder. I always enjoyed those insider glimpses of the craftsmanship that goes into a well-built, well-constructed home. Once, while visiting his own home, he took me out back to see his newly built raised bed garden. Wow! I didn’t know whether to be awed or to feel lazy, inept, and unskilled. It was a beautiful thing to see. He had expended no less attention to its design and no less energy in the construction of this garden than he would have invested in one of his custom homes. The raised boxes were perfectly symmetrical with precise corners and level surfaces composed of the highest quality materials and the finest craftsmanship. The boxes were even outlined by these expertly aligned paths laid out with that bougee crushed gravel you expect to find at English manors and French chateaus. The wood boxes and bougee paths served as an elegant frame for the masterpiece of vibrantly colorful perennials, annuals, peppers, tomatoes, and vegetables.
In late summer as the fescue languishes in the sun and the first leaves of the ash trees fall to the earth, here and there you’ll still be stopped in your tracks by the beauty of a verdant garden bursting with purple morning glories, pink zinnias, and lavender salvia, yellow mums, and lavender salvias. Paintings from Monet’s gardens sell for untold millions, and yet, they offer only facsimiles of a garden’s glory, the seeds of which are available for the price of your last take-out lunch.
The sight of a well-tended garden soothes troubled spirits, drawing attention to God’s creative and living genius. When hearts are broken by loss or bodies are laid low by illness, we send flowers to restore battered spirits. “Their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.” The gardener approaches a garden as a sacred space where the glory of God is revealed and the gift of life is celebrated. In the garden, the attentive spirit sense how the Master Gardener nurtures and sustains our own lives. To a distraught people in exile, the prophet conveys how the Lord will restore them to life and nurture them in growth. Just as the blooms in the garden sing God’s praises, so too, a people disconnected shall again sense life’s gift and together proclaim God’s praise. “Their life shall become like a watered garden … Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy”
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