Tree of Life sculpture garden opens at Thanksgiving Point with Book of Mormon and Bible scenes

Visitors to a new sculpture garden in Utah walk up a winding hillside pathway through 130 bronze sculptures and into the pages of the Book of Mormon and Bible, where they will find five depictions of Jesus Christ, the empty tomb, the iron rod and a great and spacious building.

At the top of the hill, Christ stands in front of the white trunk, branches and leaves of a bronze Tree of Life, beckoning all to come to him to find love and peace.

“I put Christ by the Tree of Life so we don’t have to wonder and try to figure out what the symbolism is of the Tree of Life,” sculptor Angela Johnson said. “It’s the love of God manifested in Christ. I just don’t want to dodge the topic anymore.”

Two massive sculpture gardens, almost side by side

The Tree of Life Garden is just a few yards past the opening to the Light of the World Garden — also sculpted by Johnson — that opened in 2016 at Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.

The two gardens display 21 sculptures of Jesus Christ and 165 total sculptures.

“A sculpture garden of Jesus? Have you noticed he is not the most popular person in the world today? All the more reason to testify of him,” Johnson told the Deseret News. “When I stand before God, I will have not been ashamed of testifying of Christ. I really think that’s the test. That’s the great battle of all eternity, between light and darkness and testifying of God and his Son.”

The Book of Mormon prophet Lehi saw a vision of the Tree of Life in which people held to an iron rod to ascend to the tree while others mocked them from a great and spacious building. Johnson filled the building with characters who are evil — Herod on his throne has blood on his hands for killing the babies in Israel at Christ’s birth — and who are chained to the lies of Satan and the world.

Johnson said one of her goals was to present the Book of Mormon as a great record of Jesus Christ.

“I’ve tried to stay true to the majesty that’s in that sacred record,” she said. “That’s been the Mount Everest, because the stories in it are glorious and we’re supposed to be where the glory is, in our courage, in our faith, in our loyalty to God.”

What is the theme of the Tree of Life Garden?

Johnson created six sculptures of a fictional woman named Adar to portray a journey from the mocking group in the great and spacious building to inviting others to join her on the path to the tree that represents Christ.

“Adar begins as the classical personification of the world mocking,” she said. “Then receives the courage to leave and she’s over there on the iron rod because she is so moved by compassion and the love and the relationships and families and faith in God, because she can compare it to the narcissistic, dysfunctional behavior and darkness of the greatest and spacious philosophies.”

It is a critical theme of the garden. The five statues of Christ in the new garden include him teaching Nicodemus about rebirth. Other images include his baptism, his crucifixion and the empty tomb representing his resurrection.

“The whole message is of hope and deliverance,” Johnson said.

One night last week, during an opening event for donors, evening sunlight filtered through the big open windows of the dark building on the right of the hillside. Migrating geese and soaring hawks criss-crossed overhead.

Underneath the blue skies, a sculpture of Captain Moroni shows him carrying the Title of Liberty. In the Book of Mormon, Captain Moroni rallies people to fight for their families and their faith against a usurper while bearing a handmade flag.

“Children seem to not have any confusion about Jesus,” she said of her sculptures. “They just walk in and they go, ‘Jesus,’ and then they want to hug him. They’re the ones whose example we need to follow.”

She hopes Captain Moroni inspires young people, too.

“I hope they’ll say, ‘That’s a real hero, not Captain America. This is a real guy,’” she told the Deseret News early in the project.

How much did it cost to build the Tree of Life Garden?

The 130 sculptures and the landscaping for the Tree of Life Garden cost $20 million, said Thanksgiving Point CEO McKay Christensen. The garden is now open, but the project is short $1.3 million and still seeking sponsors and donors, he said. Many of the sculptures were commissioned or sponsored, including one by the Tree of Life depicting Jane Manning James, an early Black member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Over 125,000 work hours went into the statues at Johnson’s studio and the foundry where the bronzes were cast. About 1,300 truckloads of dirt were removed in shaping the hillside.

“This is a story for our day,” Christensen said of the Book of Mormon.

Johnson sculpted a 163-foot railing of bronze to depict the iron rod, which in Lehi’s vision represented the word of God. Johnson used strips of clay folded into cursive letters to share seven scriptures from the Bible and Book of Mormon along the top of the iron rod. The first begins, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ ... .” The last is from Paul’s famous teachings on charity.

How to visit the Tree of Life Garden at Thanksgiving Point

The Tree of Life Garden is now open year-round Monday through Saturday. Admission times vary depending on the season. Admission is included with Ashton Gardens admission and ranges from $12 to $27 per person. Admission is free for Thanksgiving Point members.