Greeting the Rising Son : Churches Celebrate Easter from Dawn to Dusk

Lit by the rays of a waning moon and the candles in their hands, nearly 1,000 worshipers gathered Sunday for an ecumenical Easter sunrise service sponsored by six Conejo Valley churches.

Behind a temporary podium, hundreds of candles in white paper bags were laid in the shape of a 100-foot cross, lighting the lawn of Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park.

But the scores of small flames did nothing to break through the chilly morning air.

“Are you warm?” Rev. David Clack of Conejo Valley Congregational Church asked the audience drawn from six area churches. “I am freezing.”

From dawn to sunset, thousands of worshipers across Ventura County celebrated the message of Easter.

At Ventura’s Unity Church, a service filled with meditation and singing ended with each member of the congregation walking to the altar to receive a yellow flower with a Bible verse attached.

“God guides each one to his or her own flower,” explained Maureen McCarren, a Santa Monica lawyer. “It’s a personal message.” McCarren, who is originally from Ventura, called the Unity Church her home church.

At the Conejo Valley service, Clack chose an Oscar-winning movie, “Dead Man Walking,” to bring home the lesson of the holiday.

In the movie, Matthew, a death-row inmate, is walking to his execution as those three words are uttered by a prison guard, Clack said.

“That is the most startling moment in the movie,” Clack said. “Now push the pause button and go back 2,000 years.” The most startling moment in Jesus Christ’s story was when three very different words, “He is risen,” were uttered, Clack said. “Those three words have changed the lives of countless people.”

Clack urged worshipers to look within and crucify all the grudges, resentment and destructive habits they each held. He also asked members of the audience to find the things that have died within--dreams, hopes, relationships.

“Let Christ bring resurrection,” he said. “Jesus brings new life into our tombs.”

The celebration, the 28th such service held at Pierce Brothers, was co-sponsored by Conejo Valley Congregational Church and five other Conejo Valley churches--Westminster Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church, St. Jude’s Catholic Church, St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church and Westlake Lutheran Church.

Clergymen from each of the six churches took over a portion of the service, which was accompanied by a hand-bell choir and a voice choir.

“It was very powerful,” said Pat Burnett of Newbury Park, who has been attending the services at Pierce Brothers since 1977. “That is what the message is. It is a dead man who has risen again.”

“It was a very uplifting and hopeful message,” said Burnett’s husband, John.

In Ventura, about 100 worshipers joined in a spirited flower service led by Rev. Beth Ann Suggs at Unity Church of Ventura County.

“What does an Easter egg have to do with resurrection?” Suggs asked the audience as she held an egg in her hand. Answering herself, she said the eggshell was symbolic of the walls we build around ourselves. Inside is the yolk, representing the spirit of God that is within every being, she said.

“We have an outer shell to protect something precious within us,” Suggs said. “The real meaning of Easter is to break through all our limitations. We are what we think we are. We have within us the possibility to do great things in life.”

The Ventura service--with a duo of musicians singing contemporary religious songs and worshipers hugging each other, sitting in meditation and even dancing--was different in style from the one in the Conejo Valley. But the message was the same.

“A lot of things have to die for new things to arise,” McCarren said. “Easter is the coming of life.”