On Good Friday last year, Lydia and I took a round baking dish outside and filled it with dirt…we were making a mini-garden. Then we found rocks, sticks, plants, moss and leaves to cover and plant in our new garden. The final piece was a giant potato. Yup, like from Idaho. We chopped the bottom off and carved out a little hole in the middle. We placed it cut-end down and suddenly, it wasn’t any garden. It was the tomb and garden where Jesus was buried.
Lydia was so proud of our garden. I was impressed at how beautiful it was. A great reminder of what Jesus did for us–but also a pretty decoration for our Resurrection Sunday celebration.
By Good Friday evening, the leaves started to look a little dingy. By Saturday night? They were looking downright pitiful. That night before Lydia went to bed we looked at our garden again and talked about how Jesus’ friends must have been feeling. Thinking back to when we made our garden–it seemed like a long time ago! This whole time Jesus had been dead and his friends were so sad–and scared and confused.
After Lydia went to bed, I ran to the grocery store and bought a $5 bouquet of flowers. I did a little doctoring to her garden…
I loved the waiting we did from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday.
I loved the gorgeous picture of LIFE and beauty the flowers gave us.
I want my kids to know and understand what Jesus did for them on the cross. I want Easter to be as big and as exciting and (dare I say?) magical as Christmas. This is just one way we’ve decided to help impress the greatest gift and miracle onto our children.
We’ve done this surprise Resurrection Garden for several years now and although my children know what’s going to happen, they get excited to wake up and see how their gardens have been transformed. Even in the April showers, my kids want to make sure their gardens are ready…
My son now likes to gather his Playmobils for guard duty…
But those guys never make it on Sunday morning…
See how fun a Resurrection Garden can be? It’s more than a decoration, it’s an Easter morning tradition that can captivate kids of all ages!
Here’s a few more fun ideas from other folks around the blogosphere…
lamb photo by essjay, text by me
Thank you for sharing this!! We are planning a church activity and we are planning to do this! Our Primary kids will be soo excited~!!
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