As always in the Gospel of John, nothing can be boiled down to one, simple meaning. In today's Easter reading from the gospel, that Mary "mistakes" Jesus for the gardener is a case in point. What could be more natural? For if this Christ truly is God's Word, as John's prologue declares, then he is the Great Gardener, the Creator tending creation, nurturing the rootstock, turning the soil, caring for the very basis of the great chain of life.