“Dawn” | Reflection by Joe Dzeda

It has been said that dawn is one of the two most evocative words in the English language, the other being dusk. Serving as verbal portals, they help to soften the moment between night and day, allowing one to gently give way to the other.

Certainly this is the case at Trinity Church, when the dawning sun peeks through the stained-glass windows, producing an amazing pageant of colors, never exactly the same two days in a row. When I sit alone in the stillness of our church at dawn, I feel a sense of peace and reassurance, the sheer holiness of God’s house deafening in the morning silence. Here I’m ever aware of the many generations that have gone before us. They led lives as real as ours, experienced joy and sorrow, and worshipped the Lord within these same hallowed walls. The spiritual accumulation of their faith and prayers helps to sustain me in my own.

According to Saint Luke, the women who had come to the tomb at dawn to care for Jesus’ broken body were startled to find instead two angels in dazzlingly brilliant clothes standing beside them. The angels asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” As the sun rises on Easter Day, let us rejoice in the Good News of our risen Lord, and the message of hope that it brings to all of God’s family, then, now, and forevermore.