In the Garden of Joy – a Father Andrew Homily
The following homily was delivered on June 14, 2012, at the Diocesan Parish Life Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. That year, the theme throughout our Archdiocese was taken from a portion of a writing of St. John of Damascus. St. John lived in the Eighth Century (675 – 749AD). He was a doctor of the church, a prolific writer of the church, and a hymnographer. Many of the hymns in the Orthodox Divine Services were written by St. John of Damascus. He was a musician and a poet, as well as a theologian, and a father of the church. Perhaps his best-known writing is “The Exact Exposition of the Holy Orthodox Faith”, which, he said, “I just simply gathered together what the church had taught from the days of our Lord through the disciples, the apostles, and the various fathers of the church”. The theme of our conference that year was taken from that writing, in the section entitled, “On the Holy Scriptures” which is towards the end of this writing. The particular phrase that our Metropolitan Philip asked us to think about was: “the Bible fills us with eternal joy”.
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There is something special; I can’t describe it; I don’t know if any of us could. But there’s something very special that rests in the heart and soul of a person who has a love for Holy Scripture. It doesn’t matter what background they come from nor their level of education. If someone loves the scripture, there seems to be a God-given joy that emanates from them.
I want to give you a couple examples. Many years ago (while we were in seminary), Kh. Dannie and I and our children had the occasion to spend a summer up in the coal mining region of Southwest Virginia. It was way out near where Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee come together. There were two small Presbyterian churches there that we took care of that summer. We happened to live next door to an elderly couple – Andy Woodard and his wife, Betsy. They were just dear people. One afternoon, as we often did, we went over to visit in their yard. They had a swing and some chairs out there and we would sit with them and talk. One day, as we were talking about the Scripture, Betsy said with all the love in her heart, “I just love the King James Bible, if it was good enough for Paul it’s good enough for me”. She wasn’t kidding; she meant that with everything in her. We didn’t argue and we didn’t go any farther than that. She knew what she believed, and she dearly loved it. You could see it in their lives.
There was another man, who became a friend of mine after we were in the ministry, who was also from that area. His name was Bert Stiles. Bert was a country preacher. He was in the Presbyterian Church and occasionally Bert and I would get together and pray together. Bert wasn’t well educated; you could tell it. But Bert would tell how he grew up in those hills of Southwest Virginia. I don’t remember exactly, but his mother had 10 or 12 children. He used to tell the story of how he and some of his siblings could see his mother sitting in the rocking chair on one of their porches. As they peeked around the corner, they would see her with her Bible opened before her on her lap and she would be praying fervently for her children. Bert recalled how the tears would fall from her eyes and drop onto the pages of that bible. But what was even more significant for Bert, was that his mother couldn’t read. She couldn’t read but she prayed over her open Bible.
The theme before us is “the Bible fills us with eternal joy”. I want to read a portion of what St. John of Damascus wrote about the Holy Scripture: “Wherefore, let us knock at that very fair garden of the scriptures so fragrant and sweet and blooming with its varied sounds of spiritual and divinely inspired birds ringing all around our ears, laying hold of our hearts, comforting the mourner, pacifying the angry and filling him with eternal joy”. He goes on, “let us not knock carelessly but rather zealously and constantly, let us draw of the fountain of the garden, perennial and purest waters, springing into eternal life”.
Here, St. John harmonizes his God given gifts of music and poetry and theology. He gives us such a beautiful picture of the saving essence of the Holy Scriptures; the garden with birds and flowers and sounds and smells that permeate our souls. But we may ask, “what is there about this garden that brings so much joy”? The question certainly would rise, … is it the blossoms or is it birds, or is there something more? Everyone one of us might nod our heads; there is something more there.
St. John, still speaking of the Holy Scripture, wrote “it sets our mind on the back of the divine dove whose wings soar to the only begotten Son and heir of the spiritual vineyard and brings us through Him to the Father of lights, to God himself”. He says, “it’s not just the garden as wonderful as it is, but it’s the One who is in the garden”. Yes, it’s the One who is in the garden that brings this joy and this life. It is as the Holy Prophet David wrote in Psalm 16:11, “in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore”.
You will remember those two disciples going to Emmaus and how Jesus walked along the road with them that day: the evening of His resurrection. He talked with them and when they sat at table Jesus opened the scriptures (Luke 24:30-32). Our Lord opened the gate of that garden, and He showed them He was there. The disciples said, “did not our hearts burn within us?”. Their hearts indeed burned with joy when they saw Him in that garden.
St. John of Damascus wrote this beautiful passage from his cell at the Monastery of St. Sava in Jerusalem toward the end of his life. We don’t know what was in his mind or what all was going on around him. He may well have recalled the many gardens of Damascus from his childhood. I would propose to you that he likely remembered other gardens as he wrote these words. St. John, with a very wonderful grasp of scripture, would certainly have remembered the Garden of Eden; the Garden of Eden where the Lord was present in that garden. There the Lord brought joy to man with abundant food and meaningful work. In that garden He gave Adam his blessed wife and it was in that garden where he took daily walks with Adam and Eve. You see, “in His presence there is fullness of joy”.
St. John would likely have also remembered the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus often went to pray. It was in that Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal where he found His Father present; and where He prayed to the Father (John 17). It was also there in that garden where the Lord prayed for our joy (John 17:13). Even in the midst of his own tears and the blood running from His forehead, He prayed for our joy. There He was in that garden, “in Thy presence there is fullness of joy”.
St. John may well have remembered that very same Garden of Gethsemane where, after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, His mother, the Theotokos, came day after day to be with Him in prayer. As she met Him in that garden in prayer day after day, she prayed that she may go to be with Him. One day she received a wonderful, joyful message of her own falling asleep and that she would be the first to come and be with Him. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy”.
It is likely that St. John would also have remembered the garden where our Lord was crucified and where he was laid in the tomb. As St. Matthew wrote, it was in that garden on the morning of his resurrection that those Myrrhbearing women found their sorrow was turned into joy (Matthew 28:8, 9). Joy, …. they came to anoint His dead body, but they found Him very much alive. He said “Rejoice!”, “in Thy presence there is fullness of joy”.
Then, St. John would likely have remembered that last garden; the Garden of the Heavenly Jerusalem where He will be as well (Revelation 22:1, 2). He will be there sitting on His glorious throne where the river of life flows through the tree of life for the healing of the nations. Where every tear is washed away, where there is no more crying, no more sorrow, no more death. But all is joy in that heavenly garden forever and ever; “in Thy presences there is fullness of joy”.
So, as St. John suggests, he might have been thinking of all those gardens. He proposes that the scripture itself is a garden. When we open the Bible, we can knock at the gate of that garden and He is there. He is there! And we are filled with eternal joy!
About 1200 years after St. John of Damascus, there lived a man who probably never knew and likely never heard of St. John of Damascus. He may have never even heard of the Orthodox faith. He was not in the Middle East, neither in Damascus nor Jerusalem; he was born in New Jersey. He spent much of his adult life in Philadelphia but died and was buried in New Jersey. It’s a name that, more than likely, most people don’t remember – but some may. His name was Charles Austin Miles. Austin Miles became a hymn writer. In 1912 Austin Miles had an experience one day and I’d like to think that it was not totally isolated from what we have just shared. But it may have been somehow, by God’s grace, delivered through those 1200 years from St. John’s Damascus all the way to Philadelphia. Austin Miles wrote a hymn, a gospel hymn that a lot of people will know and, perhaps, grew up with. He had an experience, vision, dream, (he actually said, you’ll have to figure out what that was) about a garden and the Bible. He wrote the hymn “In the Garden” – so familiar to many of us. In his story, he tells something very significant, very interesting. He tells how one morning he had his Bible open, and he was reading. He turned to John, chapter 20 and began to read of the early resurrection morning meeting between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. He said, “I seemed to be a part of the scene; I became a silent witness to that dramatic moment as she came to the empty tomb and wept. Turning herself, she saw Jesus standing and so did I. I knew it was He; I watched as she knelt before Him and looking into His face she cried “Rabboni!” I awakened in full light gripping my Bible with muscles tense and nerves vibrating. I quickly sat down to write”. He said later, “What I wrote in those moments were never changed, never edited, never added to”. The words just came, “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses …. and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own …. and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known”.
The Bible does bring us eternal joy. I will leave this with us; that the garden is ready, prepared, the gate is open for those who knock, and the Lord is present. “In His presence there is fullness of joy.”
It is the responsibility and the privilege of every Christian to knock at the gate of this garden. It is the responsibility and privilege of every Christian, as St. John said, to draw the perennial and pure waters from the fountain of this garden. Let us not knock carelessly but zealously and constantly in that garden. Because for us, our families, and all people everywhere “the Bible fill us with eternal joy”.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Andrew
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