A Resurrection Love Basket

My littlest one was home sick this week, so we took time to do lots of snuggling and to create.

It’s our yearly tradition to make a resurrection basket at Easter time.  Small potted plants placed in a basket are surrounded by symbols to remind us of Jesus and His love.  His sacrificial love.  His resurrection love.

A purple ribbon and a nail.

A stone. 

The resurrection basket sits on our counter in the kitchen. The flowers bloomed today. 

A cross.

A cloth and thorns.

Life and beauty. 

This basket and it's symbols have me thinking.

Do I live His sacrificial love? Do I live His resurrection love?

Do I lay down my wants and seek what God wants?

Do I bring life out of dark places with my words and actions?

Do I bring hope in to the lives of those who are near to completely hopeless?

Do I live less of me and more of Jesus?

Do I extend grace rather than hold it tight in my hard heart?

Do I lay down my life for someone else in need, when He calls?

Do I speak words of truth that spring living from the ground or do I condemn with my looks and with my words?

Do I love much or do I love little?

Do I let His light shine through me or do I board up the windows and hide in the darkness of my own fear and shame?

Do I seek His ways or do I go my own way?

I think I need to pray. I need help. Maybe you do, too.

Lord, help me to remember You every day.  Help to look at the life around me and think of the life that you gave me. Help me to be sensitive to your Spirit to live Your sacrificial love as I love You and love others for You.  Help me to live out Your resurrection love as I hope in You everyday and bring Your hope and life to the ones You love.  Remind me of what You’ve done for me, so that I can do it for others. Amen

A Resurrection Tradition

My two youngest daughters and I created our family tradition of the Resurrection Basket this weekend.  We had a lot of fun designing our own versions. We made one for our home and they each made one for their teachers.

I broke away from the “basket” version and decided to use my grandmother’s old soup terrine.  Instead of using flowers like I did last year (click here for last years post and picture), I arranged little house plants in the container and surrounded them with moss.  I inserted the usual – a cross, the nail, the purple ribbon, the little piece of towel, a twig of thorns from a rose bush and a stone. 

It is special for me to use something old and meaningful and this year I am calling it the “Resurrection Garden.”

The girls picked out cute Easter baskets from a local hobby store. At half-off, they were a deal!  They chose small flowering plants, and worked hard at creating their own rendition of the Resurrection Basket, including the handcrafting of their own wooden cross by tying two sticks together, gathered from our yard.

It’s a fun tradition for our family and it gets us talking and thinking about the real meaning of Easter. 

What Easter traditions does your family do?

A Resurrection Basket

The Resurrection Basket is a special tradition in our family. We learned about it from my dear friend Anne’s son, Andrew. He makes one for his mother every year.

Each year our basket has a little bit of a different personality. Sometimes it is large and sometimes it is small. I vary the container – a bowl, a box, a basket, a crate -- depending on whether I can find what I used the year before or what I discover in the basement or garage. Sometimes I splurge and buy a new one.

I always use potted fresh flower to signify life – sometimes I use spring bulbs. We gather the other items from around the house. This year my daughter made a cross out of two sticks and some vine. The girls found fresh moss from the yard and we spread it around the base of the flowers. We added a stone, a nail, a branch with thorns from a rose bush and, new this year -- a small piece of towel. A purple ribbon is woven between the blossoms. Each item represents a different part of the Easter story.

This is a fun activity to do as a group, alone, or in the classroom. Make it for yourself or make it for a friend or a neighbor and share with them the true beauty of Easter – the truth that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead. He is alive!

In addition to the one we made for our family, the girls decided to make smaller ones for each of their teachers.

If you create a Resurrection Basket, let us know! We’d love to hear about it, and any ideas about what you placed in your basket.

Enjoy!