In a Garden: A Reflection on Adam’s Sin and Jesus’ Death

By Robb Brunansky

Published April 8, 2020

Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:41-42 NASB)

A place like this where it had all begun. At one time it was beautiful, a place of joy and peace and love. But then everything changed. Sin entered the world, and the garden became a place where death imprisoned humanity.

A garden is where it all would end. Crosses were never seen as signs of hope. Crosses were for criminals, criminals who deserved death. But what about a cross where a righteous man was murdered? What about a cross that bore the body of the Son of God? What about a cross where the Creator of all things was hung as it was plunged into the ground near a garden?

The transgressor was expelled from the garden. He would surely die, just not there. And he would be buried, but also not there.

The Righteous One came to a garden to die. There, hanging on a cross, He breathed His last and gave up His spirit. And there, in a garden, He was buried.

The last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, died on a cross and was buried in a garden. By His cross and by His burial in a garden He declares to sinners that what Adam did has been done away. Death is dead. Sin is buried. It is buried in a garden, a fallen representation of that perfect place where sin came into the world through Adam’s violation.

Good Friday is good because it gives hope to sinners. It declares that what we are in ourselves – all our sin, all our shame, and all our guilt – can be done away, crucified with Jesus, and buried in a garden. The old things can pass away.

Good Friday speaks of grace. Those who are weighed down by past sins and failures are called by Jesus to bury their sins in His garden tomb and to know the forgiveness Jesus won through His death.

Have you come to the cross to trust in Jesus as the One Who died and was buried to pay the penalty for sin? Through faith in the crucified Christ your sins can be forgiven, you can be made new, and the old can be buried forever.

What started in a garden was finished in a garden. Rest in Jesus’ completed work through faith in Him.