I am not a morning person. One of the best things about our life these days is that the child’s school doesn’t begin until 9:15, which means our alarm goes off at 8am. So why on earth would I choose to hold a worship service at 6:45am? No one in my family likes getting up that early, and every year they complain when I set the time for the Easter sunrise worship. No one is making us do this, it’s not a tradition we inherited, but something I started when we moved to Sellwood.
I can’t really explain why it is so important to me to have an outdoor Easter sunrise worship. There is just something so powerful about welcoming the light in the darkness. There is something incredibly holy about a small group of us singing alleluia in the still quiet of the beginning of the day. It’s a simple worship experience, followed by breakfast with community and then the big celebration at our traditional church. And it is my favorite part of the whole day.
I think of Mary and the other women, in the garden that first Easter. Although a very different setting than the shores of the Willamette River, I think the stillness of the moment before it all began is the same one we find as we haul the altar to the water and get ready for what God is doing here and now in our lives, brining light to the darkness, reminding us that death is not something to fear, and proclaiming that love holds us all.
See you at the river, with coffee in hand!
-Eilidh
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