The hymn "In the Garden" is one cherished by thousands, perhaps millions of Christians. I never much cared for it myself. In fact, since my entrance into seminary, I have grown to despise it. In scholarly circles, this hymn is the textbook example for the sappy sentimentality and overemphasis on experience that have pervaded evangelical Christianity. We regard it as doctrinally weak, and if it purports to tell the story of Mary Magdalene on Resurrection morning (as the accompanying scripture in our hymnal suggests), it does an extremely poor job. And if such a beloved, traditional hymn can descend to such a base level, how much poorer are contemporary choruses based on this sort of emotionalism?
The songs we learn to love in seminary are those which instruct the congregation. "O Worship the King" is a brilliant blending of God's attributes, and the classic hymns of Luther, Watts, and Wesley uphold the essential truths of the atonement loud and clear. Some modern choruses, too, such as "As the Deer" and "The Wonderful Grace of Jesus," are eminently biblical and manage to make the emotions flow from the teaching, and not vice versa. In my Declaration of Faith, I make the following statements:
I stand by these beliefs with full conviction, and these are some (though not all) of the standards by which I judge hymns and praise songs, whether traditional or contemporary. Every century has an assortment of the best and the worst by these criteria. But what many professors and seminary students miss somewhere along the way, and what I had missed, is that "In the Garden" fits this description to a tee.
This hymn was produced in 1912, at a time when great hymns were still being written–favorites such as "Rise Up, O Men of God" and "At Calvary." The composer, who contributed both lyrics and music, was C. Austin Miles. I don't yet know what his full intent was for this hymn, but the central message is clear from the refrain: the joy and intimacy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Experiential or not, that reality can hardly be deemed objectionable.
To review the thoughts that ran through my own mind, I'd like to deal with the reasons I and others had looked on this song with disdain. At first glance, the slow, swaying 6/8 feel and the "birds-and-flowers" lyrics smack of turn-of-the-last-century emotionalism. Yet the Scriptures are full of nature imagery in describing one's relationship with God (e.g., Psalm 42, the inspiration for "As the Deer"). It just happens that roses and singing birds resonate with our emotions so well that they've lent themselves to over-use in our culture. Some of us hard-nosed bookworm-type men shrink from the tenderness the song so aptly expresses. But this is really more an indictment of us as scholars than of the hymn itself. Is it possible that we spend so much time learning about God that we forget how to love Him? If we criticize the church for trying to do one without the other, do we dare to make the same mistake?
Is the song unbiblical? Well, if the speaker is supposed to be Mary Magdalene, then there are problems. As recorded in John 20, Mary meets Jesus after she comes to the tomb with Peter and John. She sees two angels and then Jesus, whom she thinks is the gardener. Jesus does not stay around to walk and talk with Mary, and certainly not from dawn to dusk. He tells her not to hold onto Him, basically because He has things to do. And where do we get the idea that birds stopped singing to hear Jesus speak? But we must remember that this song is not historical narrative; it is poetry. We need not fear that the composer is distorting the Bible or claiming to have had a vision or miraculous visitation. It is, in essence, a genuine portrait of how the relationship between a man and his God ought to be. When David wrote his psalms, he frequently compared his troubles to sinking in miry pits and fleeing like a prey from hunters. Here, I believe, the singer uses the setting of John 20 as a jumping-off point to describe the joy of being with Jesus. It is like walking through a garden and talking with a close friend. If we love God with all our hearts as the greatest commandment demands, and if we use prayer and meditation on the Scriptures to foster our closeness to the Lord, our attitude should be much like that of this hymn.
Does "In the Garden" focus too much on experience? Well, if every song in our repertoire were like this one, we might be able to make that case. Similarly, if every hymn were "O Worship the King," the thoughts would flow by too quickly to ponder them. Consistently stale worship services can serve Satan's purposes as well as wild orgies ever could. We need a balance, and most of the strong churches I've attended seek to maintain that balance. Some songs explain how to be saved, some give testimonies; some speak to God, some to the congregation; some are celebratory, others meditative, others majestic. Some focus on God's attributes, our justification, and other objective truths of Scripture. And we need others, like "In the Garden," to speak of the subjective joys that should be a normal part of the Christian's life. It is this kind of intimacy that lies behind and motivates the Gospel accounts, the didactic portions of Paul's letters, and the prophecy and praise of the law in the Old Testament. It is true that evangelical Christianity focuses on "experiencing" God, too often to the exclusion of the objective realities that make that experience possible. But I do not believe "In the Garden" fits that mold, in light of the final issue:
Do the emotions flow from the message, or vice versa? The danger of experientialism is that we might confuse "warm fuzzies" with the presence of God. We as Christians should not live by our feelings, but we should find that as we build ourselves up in all those objective, doctrinal, Bible-based, God-centered ways we learn about in seminary, certain feelings flow naturally and need to be expressed. I encourage everybody out there to read as much as you can of Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections. He deals with the difference between emotions and emotionalism, between genuine devotion and artificial sentimentality. The emotional side of the believer's life takes up most of the substance of "In the Garden," but it still manages to instruct the attentive listener as to the source of those feelings: As verse 2 notes, Jesus is indeed superlatively sweet. It is His love that places songs in our hearts. It is this sort of voice that, as verse 1 says, could only belong to the Son of God. And in verse 3, although we should treasure our devotional time with God so much that we would never leave of our own accord, He instead sends us out into this troubled world–to fight His battles, as other hymns declare. The refrain emphasizes that such joy flows from tarrying to walk and talk with Jesus–spending time and communicating through prayer. From "none other has ever known," we learn that our satisfaction in the presence of God is the only real satisfaction there is. Sing any hymn mindlessly, and you have sentimentality. But tease out the implications of the lyrics, and this hymn shines as an example of how to describe devotion to Christ with creativity and sensitivity to both heart and mind.
And so my opinion about this hymn has changed quite a bit. It will probably never top my list of favorites; I still prefer songs in two, with a bit more pomp and specificity and a really good bass part. But I can no longer overlook its quality. We should all take a second look at this hymn, to consider its meaning and be prompted to spend more time in our own "gardens." It is there, speaking to God in prayer and listening to His words in the Scriptures, that we share the most excellent of all joys.
For a concise statement of my beliefs about worship, see my Declaration of Faith.
