the gardener

Whenever visitors come to the seminary they would always think and they would almost always treat me as a gardener. Even the new seminarians would treat me as such and there was even that time when some people would ask me to help them carry their bags. Luckily there were seminarians then who came to the rescue – to my rescue and to their rescue. Because the table of embarrassment would be turned around when they would have found out that the gardener who carried their bags was saying mass for them.


Mary Magdalene thought she was speaking to a gardener. She did not recognize Jesus immediately. It was only when Jesus called out her name that she finally recognized that it is the risen Lord. Jesus revealed the resurrection to her. She did not discover it herself. Though she searched for him, she did not find him. In fact in her despair she came up with a wrong conclusion about the empty tomb. She thought that since the tomb is empty the body of Jesus must have been stolen. She did not even recognize him who was standing beside her. She talked to somebody she thought was a gardener, and she even thought that the gardener was the grave robber.
The resurrection was revealed to Mary Magdalene. Jesus revealed it to her. For this Mary Magdalene would be called the Apostle of the resurrection for it was to her that the resurrection was first revealed and it was through her that that fact was to be made known to others.
Several lessons can be learned here.
First, the reality of the divine initiative. It is always God who initiates, it is God who reveals. It is God who loved us first, it is God who reveals himself to us, it is God who converts, it is God who makes us turn back to him, it is God who makes things grow. Mary Magdalene searched. She looked. But it was not she who discovered. Rather it was Jesus who revealed himself.
In a world that is becoming so confident with itself, in an environment where self-reliance and autonomy are emphasized, sometimes even overly emphasized, in a people that has grown so trustful in its own abilities and powers, the gospel today is a reminder that God is God. It is a reminder that our attempts are in vain, our searching and our struggles would all fail if God does not initiate.
Second, our eyes can fool us, our eyes can be a prey to illusions. And so is our hearing, even our logic, our thoughts and eventually our conclusions. Mary Magdalene saw what she thought was a gardener. Mary Magdalene concluded that the gardener took away the body of the Lord. Be wary of what you see, hear, think and conclude. We are in still in a world where truth can be apparently true, where goodness can be seemingly good, where ugliness can be beautifully wrapped. In a world where presentation has become more and more important we may end up having our attention centered on the pomp and circumstance while failing to see the substance which defines.
And yet the opposite may also be true. Most often what we shun as ugly and repulsive, may be in fact what God wants us to do, and what we dismiss as lowly and simple may be the ones that God has called us to serve. Not all the things and actions that could really make a difference in our life are at once obviously good and holy. The gospel today is not asking us to be less trusting. It is asking us to be more discerning for ours is a journey of faith and this journey is not reliant merely on things immediately apparent to our sight.