Maryville College announces plans for annual Easter Sunrise Service
The annual Easter Sunrise Service at Maryville College is scheduled for 6:45 a.m., April 17 2022 on Lloyd Beach, and the outdoor service will feature a guest worship leader from the local community.
Louden Young ’12, the associate pastor of Emerging Generations and Mission at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Maryville, will lead the annual worship service, which is open to the public.
His sermon, “Who Are You Looking For?,” will draw parallels between the Biblical story of Mary Magdalene’s witness of the Resurrection and seasons of physical, emotional and spiritual renewal. Such themes, he added, dovetail with the recent announcement by the Rev. Anne McKee to step down as the College’s campus minister in order to serve as interim pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Knoxville.
“I feel like this theme is particularly poignant this year, as the College begins to transition out of the pandemic and as Anne transitions into a new call,” Young said. “For the last 21 years, those who dared the early hour would be looking for Anne, just finishing her sermon as the full light of the sun crested the mountains behind her and the gentle rays hit the dew-soaked grass of Lloyd Beach. Anne’s words were always challenging, yet followed by her particular brand of support and love that made even the convicted feel encouraged.”
The first Easter Sunrise Service was held in the center of campus in 1918, a tradition begun by the Rev. Dr. William Patton Stevenson, the Maryville College pastor who came to East Tennessee from the pastorate of First Presbyterian Church in Yonkers, New York. In 1938, the annual observance moved to the Maryville College Woods, where it was held for the next five decades.
In recent years, the service was moved to Lloyd Beach, located behind Lloyd Hall on the southeastern end of the campus and offering a spectacular view of the sun rising over Chilhowee Mountain. The service is casual, and attendees are encouraged to dress for the weather and bring lawn chairs and blankets. In the event of rain, the service will be held indoors in the Samuel Tyndale Wilson Center for Campus Ministry, where Young attended chapel services under McKee’s guidance.
“I have been fortunate enough to have experienced the ministry of many exceptional women in my life,” Young said, listing pastors at the church in which he grew up, as well as Rev. Dr. Emily Anderson and Rev. Rachel Parsons-Wells of Maryville’s New Providence. “In preaching about the first woman to bring the Good News of Christ’s resurrection to the world, it will be those women I will draw inspiration from, and God willing, I will be able to proclaim the Gospel with the same love and impact as they have. “Beyond that, to God be the glory and honor, and I will just accept prayers for a dry and relatively warm Easter morning!”
