WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT By John F. Bailey. April 20, 2025:
First Baptist Church on the windy blustery heath looking East to the rising sun this morning celebrated the rising of the sun on Easter Sunday in their traditional Sunrise Service at 6:15 A.M.
The most joyous service of the year (in this reporter’s opinion) was highlighted by a hazy sun breaking stalwartly through the clouds into a brisk west wind.
The event on “Resurrection Sunday” as Reverend Frank Farley described it, I thought the sun rising today reflected times in Jerusalem on Golgotha (The Place of the Skull) when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in 33 A.D. 1,992 years ago. The mighty sun rose not as clear as it did last year, but still reassured us it was there in the high sky
Reverend Frank Farley observed at the close of the service, the message this day brings us is it it fires up the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth and God is still within each of us that each one of us and took to, feel within us reach into us for help to become better, for strength, for endurance, to bring light into the world, be better at what we do. Reverend Farley with his soaring words into the wind said, “God is always in us for us. He rises up within us.”
Easter Sunday , I think, more than any other Sunday reminds us of the message of the good, the strength, the values, the code of living brought by existence of Jesus of Nazareth endures.
It does not disappear after Easter Sunday. With each sunrise, each day, the comfort of the great universe of stars at night assure us of the presence in us of the strength of the good that is there.
Every sunrise and sunset reaffirms these eternal truths are in us for guidance, strength, endurance, selfgrowth and doing what is right always.
The little band of worshippers joined hands at close and a glow grew in each face at the mystery of good feeling generated by the hymns in English and Spanish and hope of the messages brought on the wind and the sun’s promise, and the eloquence of the Reverend Fraley, Reverend Ever Magana and Mrs. Magana. Mrs. Magana read the Invocation of the ceremony loud clear and as moving as ever when the good news came 1,992 years ago:
MRS. MAGANA WITH REVERAND EVER MAGANA AND REVEREND FRANK FRALEY THIS MORNING.
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
