I am forgotten like the unremembered dead;
I am like a dish that is broken   PS 31: 13

My beloved has done wonderful things in the backyard of our home, especially since the self-isolation and stay-at-home circumstances surrounding the pandemic.  Besides creating different gathering spaces around garden areas, part of the process has been finding interesting locations to place garden ornaments, many of which have been given to us by dear friends and family.  For example, finding the right place for a beautiful pair of angel candle holders designed to be attached to a wall proved to be a bit challenging.  These were given to us by a friend who loves to garden herself and find interesting ways to incorporate and repurpose items of curiosity and beauty.

I was walking in the back yard through the picket fence when I noticed a gleam of light shining back from the fence.  I backed up and found that on either side of the gateway, there was a small square mirror located between two of the pickets.  It was only after walking through the gateway that I turned and looked back to find that the mirrors were the back side of the angel candle holders, which were placed over the fence on either side of the gate.  The angels were facing in toward the garden and the mirrors reflected out.  Leonard had covered over the hollow backs of the candleholders with mirrors and then draped them over the garden fence.  What amazing imagination and creativity!

I have always pondered the garden image so prevalent in the passion story of Jesus.  John’s Gospel (Jn 18:1—19:42) account of the passion that we hear on Good Friday both opens and closes with reference to a garden:

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley
to where there was a garden,
into which he and his disciples entered…

Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,
and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.

Much takes place between these two passages – betrayal, death, denial, recognition, and identification to name just a few.   As Judas along with the soldiers and guards approach the garden where Jesus is with the disciples, Jesus addresses them:

“Whom are you looking for?”
They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
He said to them, “I AM.”
When he said to them, “I AM, “
they turned away and fell to the ground.

This passage is so very powerful to me.  Those two words, the great I AM that proclaims the nameless nature of the Holy One!  When Jesus said these words, those who heard it ‘turned away and fell to the ground.’  In a way, this turning away and falling to the ground does not have to only be seen as significant of Jesus as the Holy One of God, but can be seen as the blinding reflection to the people of Who this Jesus – the Christ – really is!  In as much as Jesus is mirroring the Divine, he is also mirroring us.  And the mirror image is just too much – so they turned away and fell to the ground.

The passion of Christ that is commemorated on Good Friday is a mirror image of everything we are.  Jesus was no mere proxy for us.  Indeed, as Christ, he is us!  We just can’t seem to accept that.  We cannot allow ourselves to embrace our divine inheritance.  It just seems too much, too unrealistic, and frankly quite frightening to consider.  This I AM does not simply take on our humanity, but it becomes our humanity – from the inside out.  You can hear the frustration in Jesus’ voice when he mirrors back again what he has so honestly revealed by his word and life…

 Jesus answered him,
“I have spoken publicly to the world.
I have always taught in a synagogue
or in the temple area where all the Jews gather,
and in secret I have said nothing.  Why ask me?
Ask those who heard me what I said to them.
They know what I said.”

Nothing is hidden.  He has been up front the whole time.  And more than that, he has been with us as us.  He cannot be set apart.  We know what he has said and yet we fail to recognize or take responsibility…

Isaiah (Is 52:13—53:12) echoes this almost intransigent repugnance that we seem to want to hold on by not even wanting to look at it…

…so marred was his look beyond human semblance…so shall he startle many nations…
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.

It’s hard to look into a mirror when it does not present us with the image that we want to see.  As long as we only see our selves as projects of success, personality and happiness, we will never recognize what is also there.  And if we only objectify the Divine image, it can only remain an image or even an idol that we manipulate according to our own understanding of what our selves and lives are about.  Until we can surrender unto death, the mirror will scare us, the dish will be broken, and we will be alienated, betrayed, feel forgotten, and isolated.

Who are we looking for?  Jesus tells us I AM.  We know deep within, but we won’t always admit it and this denial can bring us to the brink of death in shame and despair sometimes.  We are looking for our very selves and the divine light blinds us from the inside out.  Maybe we do have to turn away and fall to the ground when we try to realize this!  Not out of shame or despair, but in certain trust.  The magnificence of this holy design of our lives will cause us to die, but the ground that we die into, in this garden, is fertilized by God’s own self.  And that means, that as Isaiah says in the opening lines of today’s scripture…

See my servant shall prosper…

The chance for growth and abundance is the divine identity in each of us – that ‘new tomb’ in the garden, where no one has yet been buried, that will burst forth in ways yet to be imagined! This abundant newness that traverses through the ground of transformative death is not merely an image within a mirror, but rather a holy human reflection from the mirror of Divine Light!

“Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”