by Dan Hayden • March 2020 •
Evidences of spring have already come to Florida, and the northern states won’t be far behind. Flowers blooming, leaves budding, and gardens prepared for planting—spring is always an encouraging time of the year, especially for those who must thaw out from winter’s snow and ice.
At the same time, this spring we find ourselves immersed in the difficulties associated with the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020.
In some ways, we can compare a mandated lockdown to a frozen lake, where usual summer activities of life are suspended for a time. It won’t stay that way forever, however. The thaw will come and “normal” life will resume once again. For some it will come soon—for others it will appear a little later. Hunkering down and staying inside will eventually yield to the warm sun of recovery, where everything will blossom again.
I begin this way to introduce a Christian tract I wrote years ago entitled, “The Tale of Two Gardens.” Zion’s Hope Ministry, with whom I am now ministering as a member of their teaching staff, recently included this tract as an article in their Zion’s Fire magazine (Jan.-Feb. 2020).
Re-reading this tract reminded me that the contrasting message of the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane offers to us an important contemporary message. It begins with paradise lost and ends with paradise regained.
However, applying the message of the tract to what we are experiencing with the Coronavirus is greatly skewed in magnitude. The truth expressed in “The Tale of Two Gardens” far outweighs any temporal concerns.
America has lost much as a result of the pandemic, and everyone hopes we can regain our prosperity. Yet, what people are hoping for with the current national lockdown fades in comparison to the hope we all need for eternal life. Our sin is like the Coronavirus on Steroids. Only faith in Jesus Christ and what He did for us in the Garden of Gethsemane, which led to His sacrificial death on the cross, can save us from the global pandemic of this eternal death plague.
As you read this article and think about the global nature of the Coronavirus pandemic, take time to reflect on your greater need of receiving salvation in Jesus. You are already experiencing paradise lost—but by responding positively to God’s message of salvation you can have the realistic hope of paradise regained.