My First Easter Sunrise Service

I remember well the  first Easter Sunrise Service I ever attended   I was 17 years old and in my senior year of high school.    I had given my life to  Christ only months earlier.    We did not have an Easter Sunrise Service at my home church, Grace Church in Burlington.  I do not know exactly why.   Some neighbors and fellow church members, Harold and Pat Chrismon, had invited me to attend the Easter Sunrise Service at a church near a small community called Brown Summitt near my hometown of Burlington.   I was up around 5 am and dressed in the dark of the house to not disturb the rest of our family, and made the short walk from our home to the Chrismon home.   The Sunrise Service was more of a “passion play” than a worship service as it told the story of the last days of Jesus’s earthly life through music and actors in the church cemetery.   I still remember standing in that cemetery watching the “Jesus” actor on the cross as the first glimpse of sunlight began to inch above the horizon.    I felt something that day in my heart I had never felt on Easter before.     Before that  Easter Sunday, I had shared in the Easter egg hunts with cousins and in gatherings with extended family.  On that Easter Sunday, I felt  alive, alive in Christ, because Christ Jesus now lived  in my heart.

If you open your Bible and read Galatians 5:20, you will read these words: 

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me.

Easter is not just about Easter egg hunts, gathering with family and friends, or dressing up in new spring fashion.   Easter is  more than attending worship services and taking vacation at our favorite destination.    Easter only becomes more than a day on calendar when Christ Jesus lives in your heart.  Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor  Randy L. Wall

 Prayer:   Praise and thanksgiving be to you, O God, for the truth that Christ is risen from the dead.  Through your grace and spirit, help me to die to sin and live in your righteousness;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.