SunRise Service Meditation
SunRise Service has been quiet time for me and that is the bias I bring to the worship experience. The service this morning (7:00 am) was a blend of responsive liturgy and prayer, song, and hearing the Easter story from the Gospel of Mark. The smell of trees blooming and the sounds of nature blended with the town, dogs, and our singing. The preaching moment is called a mediation, but really, the preaching moment is in the gathering of spirits for sunRise as well as 11:00 am worship. In this setting I think the brevity of words helps worshippers hear the Word.
Mark 16:1-13
It was early, first light and the women went to the tomb to tend the body of Jesus with spices. It was personal and an act of respect. I’ve always thought of Easter sunrise service as personal time with the spirit of Jesus. That is the the Easter story we hear from Mark. We know the end of the story before we get to the tomb. We come here knowing that he is not here, but we are drawn by our need to see, to hear an angle say, “He is not here”, to pay our respects, our need to experience the sunrise on our lives again. It’s personal.
In the year of Hurricane Katrina, three days after the levees broke, I went to a family reunion in Louisiana. I had not seen most of these people in twenty years. I decided I could not leave until I visited my grandparents’ graves. I know they are not there. They are buried there, but the spirit of papaw and mamaw Davison, and that of grandma and grandpa Ferrier are far from the manicured lawn of the cemetery. Being there helped me connect to a family story that I sometimes have run from, sometimes ignored or denied as part of my own. There have been times in life when I have done the same with God and with my practice of faith. I don’t know what kind of believers my grandparents where. Neither side of the family was particularly religious. The Scotch-Irish side were back-slidden southern Baptists and the French-Creole-Native American side were Christmas and Easter Catholics. I went to the cemeteries, wept and prayed. It was a long drive from Louisiana back home to Kentucky. Somewhere between Little Rock and West Memphis I gave thanks to God that I went.
Do you remember your first sunrise service? This week I told the bible study group that my first memory of sunrise service was at Aunt Ada’s farm. I was young. I was barely awake. There were people. We walked through the field to the stock pond that Aunt Ada let a church use as a site for the service. My shoes were wet from the dew. We stood the whole time and it seemed like hours. I don’t know what the preacher said. I was caught up in the unusual cold morning, my wet shoes, and the smell of horses. My first sunRise experience was cold, dewy, and smelled of horses.
How will this personal time with the risen Christ touch you? Those who gather for worship on Easter Sunday follow in the footsteps of Peter. They have heard the rumor that Jesus is alive and come to hear again for themselves that he is not here. What if it is true? What if death is real, but not final? What if Jesus is not merely past but present? What if Jesus were to meet you here? What would life be then?
Martin Luther wrote, “Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in the spring-time.” Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said that if we are silent even the stones would shout! The Easter story continues today in us, through us, as God challenges the certainty of death with the promise of life. Let the promise of life roll away the stone to your heart and hear the Easter proclamation: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here.”
Here this sacred space, sacred memory is personal. Out there, past the gate we are called to turn amazement into good news, to tell, to let our living be a sign of God’s promise in Jesus, whom we call Christ.
Christ is risen, risen indeed.