“Supposing him to be the gardener.” This is how Mary first encounters the risen Jesus. The word here means both “thinking/supposing” and “recognizing.” It is in this first Resurrection encounter that Jesus is revealed not just as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), but as Gardener, the Gardener. Mary gets it right: the One who formed the whole creation and begins the story of the world in the Garden (of Eden), suffers in the Garden (of Gethsemane), and now begins his new creation, just outside the hole of death, in a Garden.
There are more connections to the first chapters of Genesis. Just as the old Adam fell by way of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the new Adam (Christ) is lifted up and brings salvation by the Tree of Life, which is the Cross, so that “he [i.e., satan] who once by a tree overcame might be a tree be overcome” (from Passion week Communion prayer). The Resurrection begins the grand reversal of the Fall. Paradise is reopened.
Even Peter is rehabilitated. He who by a charcoal fire (18:18) denies the Lord Jesus three times is given the chance to say “I love you” three times, again by a charcoal fire (21:9).
Read through John’s entire Gospel this week, looking for Old Testament connections as you go. “Search the Scriptures!” (5:39)