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<\/a>This Sunday, I will again have the great honor and responsibility of leading over 6,000 people in the Moravian Easter Sunrise Service in Salem.\u00a0 This tradition is older than our nation, older than most Protestant denominations.\u00a0 This will be the 240th<\/sup> consecutive year that the designated worship leader will emerge from the church in the darkness just before dawn to proclaim to the assembled worshippers, \u201cThe Lord is risen!\u201d and hear the thunderous response from thousands of voices joined as one: \u201cThe Lord is risen indeed!\u201d<\/p>\nThe Easter Sunrise service in Salem is not the oldest; Lititz and Bethlehem were earlier in America and of course the original idea began in 1732 in Herrnhut, Germany.\u00a0 But it is undoubtedly the largest; it may be the largest Easter sunrise service in the country, and is certainly among the largest in the world.<\/p>\n
This is not the time for innovation, but for responsibly carrying forward this great tradition for a new generation.\u00a0 Sure, we are using new technology to broadcast and record the service.\u00a0 But the message of the service, substantially unchanged for over two and a half centuries, reflects a timeless hope that reaches over two millennia: \u201cThe Lord is risen!\u201d<\/p>\n
The 350-piece band that leads the singing of the hymns doesn\u2019t break into creative riffs or solos.\u00a0 Many of them are talented musicians who play in professional orchestras, musicians with the chops to wow the crowd with their talent.\u00a0 But on this day, they play the traditional chorales as written, seeking to blend harmoniously with the amateur musicians who have joined them: the grandmother on the French horn, the chemical engineer on the trombone.\u00a0 Each section of the band, positioned at different corners of Salem, will play a line of a traditional hymn and then wait to hear another section answer back with the next phrase, a sort of 18th<\/sup> century version of surround sound.\u00a0 There\u2019s no place in the service for fiery oratory, for a sermon.\u00a0 There\u2019s no spot for a soloist to bring \u201cspecial music,\u201d because all the music is special.\u00a0 This is something we all do together, experiential worship at its highest and best.\u00a0 There is nothing like it in the world.<\/p>\n<\/a>The six thousand or so worshippers will then process in reverent silence, hearing the call-and-response of the bands, listening to the songs of birds intertwined with the music of the brass, aware of the scent of blooming flowers and the dim growing light of dawn.\u00a0 It will take nearly forty minutes for all the worshippers to assemble in God\u2019s Acre, the Moravian graveyard.\u00a0 There, thousands of saints who have gone before us sleep; each grave with humble matching stones, each laid flat, each with a simple inscription.\u00a0 There are no vain monuments to the wealthy and powerful here, no obelisks or weeping angels.\u00a0 In this place, brothers and sisters in faith are equal in God\u2019s kingdom, and the bank president is buried next to the janitor, the bishop next to the former slave.\u00a0 Among these gravestones, each carefully scrubbed and decorated with flowers, we will gather to read the Scripture\u2019s promise of resurrection as the sun rises and brings a new day of hope to each of us.<\/p>\n