There were three things that I particularly loved about our outdoor worship on Easter morning at the John Harvard Mall. (There were many things I loved, not least just getting to be there with some four dozen of you for worship, but there were three I want to mention!)

The first was the birdsong. It struck me as I sat there, listening to the songs of the woodpecker and the robin and the sparrow (and the occasional dog) that it was almost as if all Creation were joining together in worship and praise to God—as if the sun and the trees and the birds themselves were giving glory to the same God we were praising in those services.

The second was that we were joined, not only with one another in worship, but with others across time. As one parishioner pointed out to me, we were located very near the site of the original church in Charlestown of which John Harvard himself was the minister, at a location and in a city in which people have been celebrating the resurrection for some four centuries, and that united us with them in that moment.

And the third thing was that we were joined in worship not only by animals of other species and by people of other generations, but by neighbors of our own time and place and species, people who just happened to be walking through and picked up a bulletin and stood for a minute, or sat for a minute, or joined in the whole service, whether they’d registered or not!

These three things—community across species, community across time, community outside our own community—are signs of the resurrection. It’s no surprise that Jesus appeared in his resurrected form in a garden full of nature. It’s no surprise that Jesus’ followers looked back on their ancient scriptures to try to understand what had happened. It’s no surprise that they then went and shared the good news outside their own small circle of followers. These are the things that we do when Easter happens. We look back, into our own history. We look around us at the world. And we go and share that good news with others.

I think “Easter in the Park” will be here to stay. We’ll probably, in the future, have Easter in the church, as well! But Christmas Eve and Easter were opportunities for us to worship in a beautiful place, a historic place, and—most importantly—in our place, in our own community, with people who’d never walked through the doors of St. John’s Episcopal Church but were happy to stop and worship while they were walking the dog.

I hope that we can embrace these signs of the resurrection. I hope that we can bring them with us, not only through this fifty-day season of Easter, but into our futures and into the future of this church, as we go through our own resurrection.