As we enter John 18, we enter the Passion. But John does something remarkable,he begins the Passion in a garden. I don’t think that is simply geography. I think John is inviting us to look backward before we look forward, because the story of man’s separation from God began in a garden, and now the story of our restoration enters its final act in a garden.
To understand what John is doing, we first have to think about what the Bible actually is. The Bible is not primarily a history of Israel in the way we ordinarily understand history. It certainly records real people, places and events in Israel’s history, and those events have meaning in themselves. But Scripture’s point of view is something greater. It is telling us what God was doing in and through that history,how He called a people, formed them, rescued them, corrected them, forgave them and remained faithful to them, and how through them He prepared His plan for the salvation of mankind. Hugh of St. Victor went even further:“All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ.”
Israel is indispensable to the story, but God is the protagonist.
This is not a new way of looking at Scripture. We can describe the Old Testament as revealing “the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men,” and says that within those writings “the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way.” That is almost exactly the point. Scripture is showing us God dealing with His people, gradually revealing who He is and preparing mankind for what He is going to do. But the people living that story could not yet see its complete fulfillment. Abraham could not stand beneath the Cross. Moses could not look backward from the Resurrection. David could not yet see the full dimensions of the kingdom promised through his descendants. Isaiah could describe the suffering servant, but he did not stand beside John and watch Jesus fulfill those words. What God had revealed was true, but the complete picture had not yet been disclosed. Jesus helps us understand when He says, I was there at the beginning earlier in John.
Augustine captured this beautifully: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.” That one sentence may be one of the great keys to reading the Bible. Jesus Himself showed us how to use that key. After the Resurrection, two disciples were walking toward Emmaus. They knew the Scriptures. They knew Moses and the prophets. They also knew what had happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. Their problem was not a lack of information. Their problem was that they could not see how everything fit together. So Jesus walked beside them and, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” interpreted what referred to Him throughout the Scriptures. Think about what Jesus was doing. Jesus was teaching them how to read the Bible. He was showing them that beneath the many stories is one great story. Abraham, Isaac, Moses, the Passover, the Exodus, manna, the sacrifices, David, the Temple, the prophets and the suffering servant are not meaningless stepping-stones to be discarded once Christ arrives. They are real moments in God’s relationship with His people which also belong to a divine plan whose fullness becomes visible in Christ. Pope Benedict XVI described this beautifully when he wrote that the person of Christ gives unity to all the Scriptures in relation to the one Word. St. Gregory the Great expressed essentially the same thought centuries earlier, what the Old Testament promised, the New Testament makes visible; what was hidden is openly proclaimed as present.
That does not mean every verse is secretly a prediction about Jesus. The Church is more careful than that. Scripture has a literal meaning that must be respected. Israel’s history remains Israel’s history. The Exodus really is the Exodus. David really is David. But because the same God is acting throughout salvation history, those people and events can also participate in patterns whose fullness is revealed in Christ. We call this typology. Once we understand that, John begins to look different. John isn’t simply telling us what Jesus did. He wants us to understand who Jesus is and what God’s actions throughout history have been leading toward. Jesus prepared John for precisely this. At the Last Supper He promised the Apostles that the Holy Spirit “will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” John would live with these memories for decades. But Christian inspiration does not mean that John became God’s stenographer or lost his own personality and memory. The Church teaches something much more beautiful: God worked through the human authors so that they remained true authors, using their own faculties and abilities, while the Holy Spirit ensured that Scripture communicated what God intended for our salvation.
So imagine the elderly John looking backward.He remembers the words.He remembers the signs.He remembers the bread.He remembers the wine.He remembers the water.He remembers the shepherd.He remembers the vine.He remembers the Cross.And he remembers the garden.But now he sees these memories through the Resurrection and through decades of living in the Spirit promised by Christ. Suddenly the connections become extraordinary. The Bible begins with man and God together in a garden. There man is given freedom because love requires freedom. God does not create slaves. He creates persons capable of loving Him, which means they are also capable of rejecting Him. And they do. Adam disobeys, and when God comes looking for him, Adam hides. Now another man stands in another garden. But this man does not hide. Jesus knows Judas is coming. He knows the soldiers are coming. He knows what will happen over the next several hours. Yet instead of running from them, John tells us that Jesus steps forward.
He asks: “Whom do you seek?”
They answer: “Jesus of Nazareth.”
And Jesus says: “I AM.”
Those words have been spoken before. Centuries earlier Moses stood before the burning bush and asked God His name. God answered:“I AM WHO I AM.”That moment began one of the great movements in salvation history. God had heard the cries of His people. He would free them from slavery, bring them through the waters, feed them in the wilderness, establish His covenant with them and lead them toward the land He had promised. Now another decisive moment has arrived. And again we hear:I AM. And the soldiers draw back and fall to the ground. For one extraordinary moment John allows us to see what is really happening. Jesus is not being captured because His enemies have finally become stronger than He is. They are standing before the One whom John introduced at the very beginning of his Gospel:“In the beginning was the Word.” Before Abraham, He is. Before Moses, He is. Before Israel, He is. Before the garden, He is. The men have come looking for Jesus of Nazareth and find themselves standing before I AM. They fall. And then Jesus allows them to get back up. That may be one of the most beautiful demonstrations of God’s love in the entire Passion. Jesus reveals His power and then refuses to use that power to escape what lies ahead. The Passion is therefore not fundamentally the story of men overpowering God. It is the story of God surrendering Himself to men. This is not powerlessness. It is restrained omnipotence. God will not enslave His children into loving Him. He will not force Adam back into the garden. He will open the way and invite him home. He appeals not merely to fear of His power, but to our response to His love; not merely to the justice we deserve, but to the forgiveness and mercy we desperately need.
And suddenly Genesis and John stand beside each other. In the first garden, Adam hides from God. In this garden, Jesus steps forward. In the first garden, man chooses his will over God’s. In Gethsemane, Jesus submits His human will perfectly to the Father. In the first garden, disobedience brings death. In this garden, obedience begins the journey through death toward life. In the first garden, man reaches for what belongs to God. In this garden, God gives Himself to man. And John does not leave the garden behind. He tells us that near the place where Jesus was crucified there was another garden, and in that garden was a new tomb. So the Passion begins in a garden. Jesus is buried in a garden. And on Easter morning Mary Magdalene comes to that garden looking for a dead Jesus. Instead she encounters the risen Christ. And she mistakes Him for the gardener.
What an extraordinary way for the story to come full circle. Perhaps Mary was not entirely wrong. The Gardener had returned. The Creator has come looking for His children again.This is why the Bible cannot be reduced to a collection of ancient stories or simply a national history. It is one divine plan revealed through many books, genres, centuries and human authors. The Catechism says that Scripture possesses unity precisely because God’s plan possesses unity and that Christ is its “center and heart.” The disciples on the road to Emmaus had possessed the Scriptures before meeting the stranger on the road. But after Jesus opened them, they asked one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us?”The Scriptures hadn’t changed. Their eyes had. Perhaps that is what John wants to happen to us. Once Christ becomes the key, the pieces begin coming together.
The garden looks different. The lamb looks different. The Passover looks different. The manna looks different. The Temple looks different. The suffering servant looks different. Bread and wine look different. And the words I AM sound different.
Jesus is the master storyteller because He is not merely another character who enters near the end of the story. He was there before the story began. The Author entered His own story. Perhaps we could think of salvation history almost like a great chess match. Eden is the opening, where man makes the catastrophic move of choosing life apart from God. From Abraham through Moses, David and the prophets, the long middle game unfolds. God reveals Himself progressively, patiently working through man’s freedom, faithfulness and failure without abandoning His purpose.
At the burning bush He gives us His name:I AM. Now we have reached the endgame. The same I AM stands in a garden surrounded by armed men. They believe they have come to capture Him. John knows better. Jesus has come willingly.The final sequence has begun. What looks like defeat will become victory. What looks like the death of the King will become the destruction of death. The Cross, which appears to be mankind’s ultimate rejection of God, becomes the instrument through which God offers reconciliation to mankind. This is the glory of God’s plan. He leaves us our freedom and our dignity. He does not compel us to love Him by overwhelming us with His power. Instead, He shows us His power—and then shows us something greater. His mercy. The soldiers fall before I AM. And I AM allows them to rise. Then He stretches out His hands and allows them to bind Him. The God who came looking for Adam in the first garden has returned to the garden once more. But this time He has come to bring Adam home.
