How the Sunrise Service Became an Easter Tradition

Each year, as the first light of Easter dawns, congregations worldwide gather for sunrise services—a tradition that dates back centuries and connects Christian worshippers to themes of hope, life and renewal.

“The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus is undoubtedly the most important facet of Christianity,” says David Wilhite, professor of historical theology at Baylor University.  Sunrise services allow Christian faithful to observe the mystery of Jesus’ rebirth not only with sermons, hymns, Bible readings and prayer, but also in the symbolic presence of the dawn itself.

The early morning service has roots in the Bible and ancient customs. “Dawn, even pre-dawn, was the common time to wake in the ancient world,” Wilhite says. “Ancient Judaism had three times of prayer a day, including a dawn/early morning prayer.”

From Christianity’s earliest days, he adds, pre-dawn prayers were a daily practice, and every Sunday was celebrated with a pre-dawn service. “The Pilgrimage of Egeria, written in the fourth century, speaks of sunrise services every day, and they are especially popular on Sundays,” Wilhite says. 

In the Bible, the Easter story comes from the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who offer slightly variable accounts of the morning after Jesus’ crucifixion, when his resurrection from the dead is witnessed. Depending on the Gospel, visitors to his tomb might have included Mary Magdalene, a handful of other female disciples or the apostle Peter. All Gospels recount that the tomb was found open—and empty—but depending on the version, either one or two angels (or men) appeared, declaring that Christ had miraculously risen. In some accounts, Jesus, himself, appears, most commonly to a weeping Mary Magdalene, and tells her to go forth and share the news of his resurrection.

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians practiced all-night Easter vigils, culminating in sunrise services. According to Wilhite, these vigils were significant for baptizing new believers, who then participated in their first communion—the ritual of sharing consecrated bread and wine, symbols of the body and blood of Christ—on Easter morning.

In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation gave birth to a branch of Christianity that rejected Roman Catholic doctrine, hierarchy and rituals in favor of the authority of scripture and personal piety. Some Protestant denominations maintained the church’s liturgical calendar, but others, like the English Puritans, abandoned Easter celebrations. (Britain’s Parliament officially banned them in 1647.)  “It was not until the late 19th and especially the early 20th century that [so-called] ‘low church’ Protestants, like Baptists, started to reclaim the practice of an Easter sunrise service,” Wilhite says.

As Christianity spread, missionaries discouraged customs harkening back to pagan rituals that celebrate rebirth, new beginnings and the return of the sun’s light. However, as Christianity became established, some churches began holding sunrise services—sometimes in graveyards—echoing the experiences of the Biblical disciples who first witnessed Christ’s resurrection.

According to Ace Collins, author of Stories Behind the Traditions and Songs of Easter, Easter sunrise services became common in the United States by the mid-19th century. “Newspapers contain many stories of church sunrise services throughout the rest of the 1800s, but in the early 1900s, the concept really took off,” he writes. “Today at Easter, many churches around the world meet outdoors in the minutes before dawn. There are even services in the Holy Land at the spot where they believed the two Marys first saw a risen Savior.”

One notable early Easter sunrise service took place in 1732 with Moravian Protestants in Herrnhut, Germany, where single men held an all-night prayer vigil at a local cemetery, followed by a sunrise service. The next year, the entire congregation joined, and the tradition spread to America in 1772 with Moravian settlers in Salem, North Carolina, where sunrise services have continued for more than 250 years. 

Other significant American Easter sunrise services include those at the Hollywood Bowl, first held in 1921 and becoming a long-running annual tradition; Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta since 1944; Mount Rushmore in South Dakota since 1945; Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, outside of Denver, since 1947; and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., since 1979.

Although it’s not known when the tradition began, some sunrise services include a symbolic release of white doves into the sky. Long a symbol of peace and hope, doves also embody the Holy Spirit, or third element of the Holy Trinity after God and Christ, for Christians. The doves’ flight is often viewed as an elevation of that spirit.