On March 31 and April 1, University Baptist Church in Thibodaux put on a resurrection play.  The play was called “From Graves to Gardens”.

“We call it From Graves to Gardens and obviously the meaning there is twofold,” said Pastor J.P. Cox. “Jesus went from a grave to rising from the dead in a garden tomb but then there’s a spiritual meaning there.”

Cox continued. “A deeper spiritual meaning that Jesus wants to take everybody regardless of background; regardless of what they have done in their lives. He wants to take them from the grave to the garden because we’re all destined to die a spiritual death without Him.”

Cox said that without Jesus we are promised an eternity in Hell but, with Jesus we are promised eternity in Heaven. Cox explained that the goal of “Graves to Gardens” was to present the gospel to people in a non-threatening way.

“We got a lot of people here this weekend who never go to church, that aren’t believers and have no religious background and there were numerous people that came to us over the course of both nights and said “I never knew this part of the story.” or “This part really spoke to me.”

Cox said that the play was brief lasting about 40 to 45 minutes. The play showed several scenes from the last week of the life of Jesus.

Cox said that his favorite part of the play was when some women from the church did a dance to a song called “Arise My Love”. At the very end of the song, the actor who plays Jesus walks out of the tomb as a smoke machine is producing smoke and walks between the women, raising his hand up as if toward Heaven. The women then bow down before him.

“To me that’s a glimpse of Heaven. When believers in Christ get to Heaven we are going to bow before the resurrected glorified Jesus,” said Cox.

He explained how we, like Christ’s disciples, have gone astray from Christ. He talked about a sermon he gave about the kiss of hypocrisy from Judas as he betrayed Jesus and the sword that Peter used because he was fighting those that came to arrest Jesus, not knowing it was God’s will for Jesus to die on the cross.

Cox said that he explained the story of the gospel to the audience after the play. He told the people that the price for sin is eternal separation from God. He said that God in his judgment and righteousness also shows grace by making a way for us to have life even though we don’t deserve it.

He said if someone wants to be saved they just have to do what it says in the book of Acts which is to turn from sin and ask Jesus for forgiveness.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the play. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see it live, but I watched it on the church’s Facebook page. If you want to view the play you can do so using this link.

https://m.facebook.com/universitybcthibodaux