The power of a sunrise...

Watching the sun rise is not normal for me.

But there is one sunrise a year that I do everything in my power to see. 

Today was that day this year.

Not March 27.

Easter.

Since 1989 I have spent most of those early Easter mornings on this little knoll gathered for a sweet time of worship and fellowship with other believers at Oak Grove Church of Christ's Sunrise service. Nothing can compare.

This morning I was able to get a picture after the service.

 When I looked at the photo this afternoon I realized I got a perfect picture. 

In the foreground, if you look closely, you will see bunches of flowers. 

What is not evident unless you enlarge the photo is what else is there ...

The little knoll we gather on includes a small, family cemetery. It is beautiful to see life blooming alongside the cold, stone monuments to lives once lived. As our eyes were focused on the sun rising and we celebrated the Son rising, it was even more wondrous to consider that though death and darkness was part of the Easter weekend experience it is not the most powerful part. 

Darkness has not overcome the Light. 

It cannot. 

"...Jesus spoke to them, saying, 

'I am the light of the world. 

Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, 

but will have the light of life.'"

John 8:12

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world 

did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses;grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." John 1:1-18