by Daniel S. Trout
“But let us cultivate our garden,” admonishes the title character Candide in the final line of the French historian/philosopher Voltaire’s famous satire of (in his mind, at least) post-Christian Europe entering a new era of Enlightenment naturalism. Voltaire frequently derided the Church and scriptural truth—in fact all institutions and persons that he deemed brimming over with objectivism and delusions of grandeur—and yet, ironically, in his biting criticism we find here in Candide a biblical reality that Voltaire mistakenly believed to have arrived at through his own reason: man’s raison-d’etre lies not in the optimism of self-contrived glory and success, but discovering joy and purpose in the execution of a simple duty—like tending a garden. Pity Voltaire! As Christians, we are already mindful of life’s intent because we always have a sense of our “createdness”; we are placed by God in His universe to bring Him glory through faithful image-bearing—in other words, we learn of and show what God is like in our work. Is this not the fulfillment of our duty—to “fear God and keep His commandments” (Eccl. 12:13)? In this case, interestingly, we realize that keeping His commandments means representing God—implementing His intentions and doing our work with character that reflects His holiness, rendering the results truly praiseworthy.
Thus, of all the ways God presents himself in Scripture, perhaps the most striking depiction we find at the beginning of Scripture—and at its end (the new beginning!)—is that of God—the Great Artisan. Recall the words of Genesis 2: “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east.” The garden, as we read on, was filled with “every good tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food.” Now, although man fell and evil entered the world to spoil its perfection, the fact remains that the vestiges of the primeval beauty that this Artisan designed remain. Creation itself remains “good,” and as the redeemed community, we above all people should master the art of cultivating what God made. Were the earth doomed to annihilation, perhaps one could brush aside what I am writing as nostalgia for a lost utopia, but consider the last picture of the future in Revelation 22: In the new earth we see a river of water, as bright as crystal; and we again see a beautiful tree planted at the heart of Jerusalem for the life of the nations. We do not know how much of this language is just symbolic, but it is clear that God still values the wonder of nature enough to use it to illustrate eternal bliss. In any event, Eden endures as that idyllic country where God and man reign in perfect peace, book-ending the Bible with all the truth, goodness, and beauty that only could flourish in a garden.
As Anglicans, we are heirs of an English tradition that has not only respected, but celebrated the art of gardening. Perhaps it is because—emphasizing the Incarnation of Jesus Christ as we do—we intuitively grasp the wondrous potential of a seed, and the miracle that springs from the dirt after we plant it. Christ is the ultimate seed: He came among us to be planted in the ground that He might grow forth in Resurrected life to share it with all who would take His life with them when they die. If for no other reason than that, let us look to the garden around us and till it. Yes, some of us will have green thumbs and others so black as to instill fear, but let none of us forget the earth that we tread in this life—the same earth that will give us rest as we look to the future when we will all spring forth again. As Christians, we do not need “Earth Day” to appreciate what God has made; in spite of our mistakes, as Gerard Manley Hopkins famously wrote, “And for all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”
