The Master Gardener

When I last visited St. Nersess Seminary, Der Mardiros Chevian proudly showed me the little garden behind his residence. You could see the joy on his face as he talked about each plant, each flower. He loves tending it, watering it, watching it grow. But he also said something that struck me. He said, “The hardest part of gardening isn’t planting the seeds—it’s dealing with the weeds.”

Gardeners know that weeds are persistent. You can cut them down at the surface, but if you don’t pull them up by the root, they’re coming right back. You can prune the leaves, you can cut them with shears, but unless you deal with the root, the problem isn’t going away.

And that is a picture of the world we live in. Humanity has tried every tool in the shed to solve its deepest problems. We’ve tried education, politics, science, psychology, technology, and money. Each has its place, and each can bring some good. But none of them deal with the root of the problem. Because the root is deeper than economics, deeper than politics, deeper than medicine.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The root of the problem is a problem of the heart. That’s where the weeds grow. That’s where the real battle must be fought.

That’s why the psalmist cried out in Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Only God can dig down into the soil of the soul and pull up the root of sin. Only God can take a hateful heart and make it loving. Only God can take a selfish person and make them generous. Only God can take a broken life and make it whole again.

Friends, God is the Master Gardener. In Jesus Christ, He reaches into the soil of our hearts, pulls out the weeds of sin, and plants something beautiful in their place. Where there was hatred, He plants love. Where there was despair, He plants hope. Where there was emptiness, He plants peace.

And when God plants something, no storm, no drought, no enemy can uproot it.