Bringing Home Message of Easter : Religion: After all of county’s tribulations, clergy says Resurrection reinforces faith of troubled flocks.

It recently occurred to the Rev. Ira Day that this Easter was different. Never in his tenure as an Orange County preacher has he been so blessed, as it were, with content for the morning sermon: fires, floods, earthquakes and now, of all things, bankruptcy.

What’s next, a plague of locusts?

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Day said with a laugh.

The pastor of El Toro Baptist Church, like most of his colleagues, is wrestling with a fundamental question: What spiritual lessons can people glean from the many problems that have ravaged Orange County?

“Maybe it’s God’s way of getting our attention,” Day said. “Maybe it’s God’s way of saying to affluent Orange County, ‘Maybe you’re not so affluent after all.’ Even in the environment we live in, with all the material blessings we have, we still need to turn to God.”

“In God’s work, the bad news isn’t the last news,” said the Rev. Mark Roberts, pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church. “That’s why the theme of Resurrection is particularly relevant--in Orange County--this year more than any other I can remember. We’re dealing with it here on a very visceral level--on teaching people that they can and will overcome.”

For dozens of ministers in Orange County, this Easter is fundamentally different from last Easter: At least half a dozen families in Day’s middle-class congregation have “lost their jobs or they will lose their jobs, or they’ve taken big cuts in salaries,” he said. “Some may lose their (health) benefits.”

At the same time, he has noticed a rise in attendance, a shift in emphasis.

“There’s a greater interest than there has been in a while,” he said. “I see more faithfulness, more involvement, more commitment.”

It isn’t as though local ministers welcome the grim news, but not all see it as an omen of darker days to come.

“The good news of Easter depends on the bad news of Christ’s death on Good Friday,” Roberts said. “The challenges we face in Orange County are quite real and for the most part are bad news. But the real news is that we’ve hardly exhausted God’s power to make a difference in our lives.”

Nevertheless, Roberts finds himself consoling members of his congregation whose futures have been made uncertain by the bond crisis.

“This Easter, I find myself realizing that a lot of things have come together at once, and the cumulative effect is just devastating,” Roberts said. “Just as we were getting past the economic impact of military downsizing in Orange County and could finally see the light at the end, the bond crisis struck.

“I guess it shows that if we put our hope in a restored economy, it’s an uncertain hope. It doesn’t last. But if we put our hope in God, we don’t have to lose hope--in spite of the very real disappointments in all our lives.”

The Rev. Robert Schwenk, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in San Juan Capistrano, finds himself feeling angry about the firefighters and teachers in his own congregation whose investments and retirement funds have been threatened by the bond crisis.

“This Easter, more than any other, it’s obvious life is tenuous, and the securities we think we have are really not so secure,” Schwenk said. “They’re not secure because of people’s irresponsibility and greed and power needs that operate beyond our control. We’re often lulled into thinking that everything’s OK when it’s not.

“We should become aware of what true security is. And it is not in earthly things.”

The Rev. Bruce Warner, pastor of Palisades United Methodist Church in Capistrano Beach, finds himself thinking about “greed, carelessness, self-centeredness” and how they’re contrary to the message of Easter.

Two members of Warner’s congregation are teachers whose special-education programs were eliminated as casualties of the bankruptcy. Warner also works closely with the Interfaith Shelter Network, “which takes homeless people off the street and gives them three months to get back on their feet,” with churches providing support and care in the meantime.

The network serves 150 to 200 homeless people and has a 70% success rate in putting them back to work, he said.

“But the funding has essentially disappeared, so the program is in real jeopardy. . . .

“A lot of my people are very angry at the county Administration,” Warner said, “but I try to tell them that vengeance isn’t going to balance the budget. And in the end, it isn’t financial schemes that make for a better county. It’s people, giving of their energies and effort and heart for the betterment of others.

“The temptation in Orange County is to focus on our treasures, our material goods. But that isn’t where life is located. So, on one level maybe this crisis has been good therapy. For there is no Promised Land--even in Orange County--if people abandon their spiritual roots. That alone may be the message of this year’s Easter.”