“I had never seen the message of Easter as clearly as I did that night.”
Recently, I was thinking about all of the Easters I have celebrated. There are lots of happy memories of Cantatas that I have had the pleasure to sing in and/or conduct, the wonderful meals shared with family and friends, and, once children came along, the annual egg hunt to celebrate our New Life in Christ. I would like to share with you one very special and very different Easter that I "experienced" as a teenager.
I was attending an Anglican church in the city of Toronto and was part of a college & career age group. We met each Sunday evening at the back of the sanctuary to celebrate the Eucharist in a more modern way. We had guitars, a banjo, bongo drums and tambourines. The liturgy was written by our minister and was so different from the Common Book of Prayer Service that we recited each Sunday morning. Together, we would also attend a large gathering of young people at St. Paul's Cathedral each Thursday night for singing and prayer . . . we were part of the "Jesus movement."
As Easter approached that year, there was a real sense of wanting to really experience Easter for the first time. Most of us had become Christians over that past year. Our minister suggested that we have an Easter vigil. I had never heard of such a thing but, hey, I would get to stay up the whole night!
We gathered on Saturday evening and had a wonderful time of singing and fellowship. Then, as the hour became late, we were asked to take a pew by ourselves in the sanctuary. The lights were off, candles were burning on the altar, and two offering plates had been placed in the middle. We were told that members of the congregation had written prayer requests on pieces of paper and had placed them in the plates. We were to go and take a couple of requests and return to our seats. Then we were to pray for those requests, and, when we were finished, retrieve two more, depositing the ones we had back into the dish. We spent a few hours praying for each of these burdens. The minister, as well, took time to pray individually for each one of us as we prayed for others. What an uplifting night!
Later, we sat and shared about our prayer time and about what Christ had done for us. We sacrificed our sleep to pray for others . . . He sacrificed His life so that we could live! I had never seen the message of Easter as clearly as I did that night.
As the sun was about to rise, we walked to the corner to watch it come over the trees and to give thanks for this incredible Easter morning. I thought of how it must have been at the tomb . . . the sun rising and the glow of the angel telling the women that Jesus had risen! We returned to the church and were joined by others at the sunrise celebration service. The songs and hymns surely resounded within that place that morning because we had spent the night with Our Lord and Saviour . . . Oh, What a Saviour!
I know that after reliving this memory, I'm going to spend time this Easter lifting the burdens of others before my Saviour — the One who lifted me out of the bondage of sin and into eternal life. Won't you?
Debbie is a dear friend who serves and worships with the Halifax Christian Church in Halifax, NS, Canada