Dave and I have an Easter gift for you!

This is a very special Easter gift! 

The following piece was written by a very special friend, David Schelhaas. Dave is a retired college English professor who now lives in Iowa. Many years ago he lived here in our part of the state, taught at Western Michigan Christian High School in Muskegon, and was a charter member of HIS MEN…a singing group that I founded in 1972. 

He’s not only a fine singer, but an excellent writer. I invite you to savor this little gem on Easter Sunday, 2021: 

Thinking He Was the Gardener 

Thinking he was the gardener

she did not recognize him,

eyes blurred with tears, the weight

of grief breaking her heart.

 

Now, all these centuries later, we find

her misidentification of him as gardener

happily apt.

For he is the gardener

of our lives and our salvation---

planter, waterer, weeder, feeder, completer.

 

He is the gardener

of all green and growing things, of

grasses, flowers and trees. The great sequoias,

redwoods, and cedars of the world bow down to him

who bends to tend the almost invisible lettuce seeds

planted this morning in my garden.

 

He cares for all creatures, plants

the conies, those “feeble folk,”

in houses of stone to protect them, gives

water for the wild donkeys, delights

in the antics of leviathan.

 

Before time was, he cast stars

like seeds into the endless

furrows of space and still

charts their growth over seasons

that linger on for eons.

 

Dear, sad Mary, one word and she knew him,

yet all eternity may not be time enough

for her to comprehend him.

 

Thank you, David. 

Christ, the gardener, is risen. He is risen, indeed!