Prayer and Play : On a Balmy Spring Sunday, Easter Celebrants Lead Parade to Beach

It was near dawn. The sun had yet to rise and a nearly full moon still lingered, casting shadows on the beach, when out of the dimness the people came.

Some were carrying lawn chairs while others had blankets wrapped around them, a few walking barefoot across the cool sand.

Dressed in jeans, sweat suits, shorts, and occasionally in suits and ties, they appeared an eclectic group. But there was something they held in common, something that brought them together this Easter Sunday morning.

“We came to pray,” Joan D’Ardenne said simply, as she placed Easter lilies around a wooden cross erected in the sand on Balboa Peninsula. D’Ardenne and more than 300 people from nearby Christ Church by the Sea United Methodist came to the beach by the break of dawn Sunday to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

The morning stillness was broken only by the gentle rhythm of waves beating against the shore and the rising voices of the worshipers, their faces turned to the ocean, singing hymns and reading religious passages. Once the service was momentarily interrupted when a school of playful dolphins appeared, dipping in and out of the blue-gray waters beyond the surf.

As the ceremony drew to a close, the sun burst forth across the crystal blue sky.

“The beach to me symbolizes a new beginning; where the shore meets the sand is like where the vastness of life begins,” said Dave Draper, 39, of Costa Mesa after the 45-minute service.

Evelyn Huebner, 61, of Costa Mesa said participating in the outdoor service brought her closer “to the whole Easter experience as we know it in our Christian faith.”

She added: “There’s the opportunity to renew life if we take it, and the ocean is there for the taking.”

As the faithful picked up their belongings and crossed the street for morning refreshments at their church at 1400 W. Balboa Blvd., other early risers flocked onto the beach to enjoy yet another sunny day of a bright and balmy holiday weekend.

“This is heaven,” gushed Diane Rundle as she stretched out on the sand.

Rundle and her family are from upstate New York and came to Southern California for the week for a respite from the cold still gripping the eastern state.

“When we left home, it was snowing and 30 degrees,” said Rundle. “It’s lovely here.”

Her words were echoed by tens of thousands of other sunshine revelers who came to the beaches across the county over the holiday weekend to surf, swim and lie in the sand under the dazzling sun.

“I came out here to get a tan and to check out the girls,” said 6-year-old Christopher Ruiz of Santa Ana as he dug a tunnel around a mound of sand. “But, I guess I’ll try to make a (sand) turtle instead.”

John Whisman, 27, drove from San Bernardino to Newport Beach, he said, to escape the oppressive desert heat.

While his wife and son lounged under the sun, Whisman sat in water with his 1-year-old daughter, Jacklyn, and together the two scooped up watery sand and watched it slip through their fingers.

“We’re just going to sit here all day and enjoy the scenery,” said Whisman.

“For right now, this is beautiful and I have no worry.”