MESA, Arizona — In its 87th year, the Mesa Easter Pageant “Jesus the Christ” brings to life the story of Jesus Christ and provides a message of love and hope to those who attend and participate in this annual outdoor production.
“Nearly every scene in the pageant shows the Savior lifting, healing, serving, rescuing, … loving. That was intentional,” said Jenee Prince, who has served as the pageant creative director since 2012. “The pageant is all about God’s love.”
She added: “When we were working on the rewrite [debuted in 2022], the consensus was that the overarching theme should be love. We wanted everyone who came to see the pageant to feel God’s love, to feel His peace, to have more hope, more acceptance, more love.”
The 70-minute presentation began April 9 and is presented daily at 8 p.m. on the north lawn of the Mesa Arizona Temple through April 19, excluding Sunday and Monday.
It’s a far cry from its humble beginnings — an Easter sunrise service held on the temple grounds in 1938 when a group of young people gathered from around the state to enjoy a festive weekend of activities, including celebrating with song on the east side of the temple at the moment the sun broke through the darkness on Easter morning.
Since then, the pageant has grown tremendously in front of, on and behind the stage.
Nearly 100,000 people are expected to attend the production this year. Attendees come from all over Arizona and other states and countries as well. This year’s cast numbers nearly 500, with hundreds more behind the scenes — many who return to volunteer year after year. The massive stage stands four stories high, and the actor portraying Christ is lifted high above the angels on the top tier in the finale scene that celebrates His Resurrection.
This year, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints introduced a video called Greater Love, emphasizing Christ’s Resurrection and His love, and the Church-sponsored Mesa Easter Pageant is a part of that.
Greater Love comes from John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That scriptural foundation allows members of the Church to teach about Christ’s love using His example and His teachings.
“We should celebrate the Resurrection of our living Savior by studying his teachings and helping to establish Easter traditions in our society as a whole, especially within our own families. We challenge you to do so,” said President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, in a video posted on social media and the Church’s website in February.
The Church provided new videos depicting the Savior’s ministry and Holy Week study materials, found on the Greater Love page on the Church’s website.
“Greater Love is an opportunity for members of the Church not just to focus on Easter week but to focus on reaching out to others and appreciating the Savior for this culminating act of His life,” said Kim Farah, an area media relations manager for the Church.
Farah said of the Easter pageant, “I can think of no other production that reminds us of the birth, the life and the death of Jesus Christ and so poignantly moves us to remember what He stood for, and He stood for greater love.”
“The [Mesa Easter] pageant brings us together,” Farah added. “That’s what I found most remarkable when seeing it last year — there’s nothing like being with other people as you experience something that touches your soul, as you feel the Spirit together, no matter what your faith, and to be able to look at each other and know that you both have such a love for Jesus Christ, as followers of Jesus Christ.”
Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman, a lifelong resident of Mesa and a descendant of Latter-day Saint pioneers who settled in the area in the late 1800s, said there’s a feeling of community at the Easter pageant.
“We want to create space in our community for everybody to know that what I feel is important and all of us working together for the same purposes, whether it be religious or whether it be in service to others, but in showing kindness and to love people, and I think this is what the pageant promotes.”
He added: “Every time I attend, I’m deeply touched by the message that is delivered and for the whole experience — and I pass that on generationally to my children and grandchildren — that this is somewhere where you could come and feel peace and love and a great opportunity to be part of Mesa.”
For the hundreds in the cast who spend countless hours preparing for and presenting the Mesa Easter Pageant, they collectively desire to share the love they have for Jesus with others.
It also becomes a personal, spiritual experience.
The Evans family of Gilbert, Arizona, auditioned to be a part of the cast last year, in part due to their desire to elevate their celebration of Easter.
Several years ago, mom-of-four Stephanie Evans heard ideas at a women’s conference about celebrating a more Christ-centered Easter.
“It lit a fire in me,” she said. Since then, her family celebrates Holy Week traditions, and she says the way her family now celebrates Easter positively affects the rest of the year, and it gave them a desire to participate in the pageant.
After auditioning last year and again this year, Stephanie and her husband, Travis, and their 11-year-old daughter, Olive, were cast in the scene where synagogue leader Jairus pleads with Jesus to heal his dying daughter, and Jesus later raises her from the dead. The Evanses’ three sons were also asked to participate in the cast in other scenes. None is a professional actor or has previously been involved in theater.
Stephanie Evans said that particular scene, which is set among other miracles Jesus performs, can be exhausting as she imagines the grief and anguish the mother would have experienced, followed by indescribable joy.
“But I felt really aware of people in life who don’t feel like they get their miracle. I wonder when people watch they might think that doesn’t really happen nowadays. So, I felt that this is a message of you wait and you wait and you might not get what you are hoping for in this life, but because of our Savior we have hope in the next life of every one getting that healing and being with their loved ones.”
Travis Evans said he has gained deeper insight into the love of Jesus from not only the scene of raising Jairus’ daughter but also another miracle portrayed of Jesus healing a woman with an issue of blood.
“The woman yearns to be with Jesus but doesn’t want anyone to see her,” he said. “So, despite who we are, if we have the desire to go to Him, He’s everything. He can clean us. He can change us. He can do all things for us. I better understand and know that He loves, and that’s it, there’s no other qualifier, He just loves. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, He loves.”
Daughter Olive Evans said through her pageant experience she too understands Jesus’ greater love for everyone better.
“Jesus is on His way to us, but He doesn’t just ignore everyone else. He helps everyone.”
See MesaEasterPageant.org or MesaTemple.org for information.
— Jill Adair is Mesa temple events specialist for the Church’s Arizona Communication Council.
