Thinking he was the gardener, she did not recognize him, eyes blurred with tears, the weight of grief breaking her heart.
Now, all these centuries later, we find her misidentification of him as gardener happily apt. For he is the gardener of our lives and our salvation— planter, waterer, weeder, feeder, completer.
He is the gardener of all green and growing things, of grasses, flowers, and trees. The great sequoias, redwoods, and cedars of the world bow down to him who bends to tend the almost invisible lettuce seeds planted this morning in my garden.
He cares for all creatures, plants the conies, those “feeble folk,” in houses of stone to protect them, gives water for the wild donkeys, delights in the antics of leviathan.
Before time was, he cast stars like seeds into the endless furrows of space and still charts their growth over seasons that linger on for eons.
Dear, sad Mary, one word and she knew him, yet all eternity may not be time enough for her to comprehend him.