Traditional Easter Sunrise Service at Maryville College to take place at 7 a.m. March 31 on campus
March 22, 2024
For East Tennessee residents so accustomed to the verdant hills of the Great Smoky Mountains, the pall of winter makes the season of short days and long nights seem interminable.
A closer look, however, reveals richness and beauty in abundance, an assuredness that life continues, even as the land seems draped in winter’s drab. In the deep hollows and holes, animals hibernate. As twilight approaches, bare branches explode with the launch of hundreds of starlings, skyward bound in intricate patterns of murmuration. Beneath the leaf litter, seeds and bulbs push slowly toward the light.
Nature is omnipresent … just as God is, a serendipitous message that Interim Campus Minister Jamie Webster plans to share with the assembled congregation of Maryville College students, faculty, staff and members of the community for the annual Easter sunrise service on the Maryville College campus.
“There will be times when we run away … when we’re walking down a path and don’t even recognize that the light is with us … when we break bread with friends and all of a sudden, we find ourselves hyper-aware of the laughter and love and life all around us,” Webster said. “To me, that’s what the gospel story says. Whether we’re on the road to Emmaus, or in the upper room, or standing in front of an empty tomb with the stone rolled away: God is with us, even in times when we don’t see it.”
The service will take place at 7 a.m. Sunday, March 31, on Lloyd Beach, the lush field across Circle Drive from Lloyd Hall on the MC campus. An informal and interdenominational gathering designed to celebrate the Resurrection, it’s also an opportunity for congregants from the wider community and from Maryville College itself to sit in interconnectedness.
“In the lovely liminal spaces like Easter morning, when we can sit inside of those schedules together, we can see how we truly are a community of people,” she said. “I think that moments like Easter just get us out of our regularly scheduled programming and show us that we are all part of this beloved community.”
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 faith leader 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 Webster serves as the spiritual liaison for the MC community.
The service will begin at 7 a.m., and joining Webster to lead the Easter Sunrise Service will be Jordan ’18 and Maddie Carpenter McCullough ’18, who will provide special music; and Chapel Fellows Gavin Lester ’24, Caleb Fanning ’24, Dana Patterson ’26, Jackie Manning ’26 and Katie Parnell ’27 will lead hymns and read Scripture passages. MC President Dr. Bryan Coker will provide the welcome.
