After a year of turmoil overseas and at home, Denver-area preachers, pastors and priests plan to present a message of rejuvenation and renewal at services on Easter Sunday.
Some Christian leaders will invoke events that made headlines during the past 12 months — most notably the racial strife ignited in Ferguson, Mo., in August — in their words to the faithful.
Others plan to stay with a more universal Easter message, celebrating the resurrection of Christ while urging congregants to see the good in the world and in each other.
Iliff School of Theology president Thomas Wolfe said whatever theme clergy emphasize on Christianity’s holiest day, the “power of the Easter message” is in its ability to awaken in people the realization that “the capacity for change rests within them.”
“The hope is that people discover that capacity for hope within themselves,” said Wolfe, who is delivering the sermon at the annual sunrise service at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Sunday.
Wolfe, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, said the racial tension that exploded in Ferguson last summer after an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a white policeman will serve as a “guiding issue” for his sermon at the popular dawn worship service.
He said the tension that came from that event, which was perpetuated over the months by police shootings in other states, left many feeling as if race relations in America had been dealt a fatal blow.
“When we look at Ferguson, people can say in a jaded way — ‘Is anything ever going to change?’ ” Wolfe said. “Sometimes we expect that there is no outcome besides inevitable disappointment.”
But Easter can change that for the better, he said.
“It interrupts the outcome and reframes the outcome,” he said.
The House Worship Center, Denver
That interruption is exactly what Del Phillips, lead pastor at this primarily African-American church on South Monaco Parkway, is seeking.
“An unfortunate wound has been reawakened” by the racially charged confrontations of the past year, he said. He wants to use his sermon to frame the resurrection story as a metaphor for “how many of us are finding our way back to life” — back to a place where law enforcement, government and other institutions can be trusted rather than seen as the adversary.
“It’s a way to come back to more stable times that will allow us to rise above the pre judices,” said Phillips, who recently assumed leadership of the 50-church Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance. “I personally think we can rise from that place of death and be restored to life.”
St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Centennial:
Father Randy Dollins, who is moderator of the Curia and Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Denver, isn’t planning to directly tap into current events in his homily Sunday.
But he recognizes that people can’t help but be influenced by what they read and see going on in the world, and it takes a special effort not to get dragged down by what seems like an endless stream of sad stories.
“People get ground down by life and they lose enthusiasm,” Dollins said. “We’re downtrodden and we tend to live in a perpetual Lent.”
His message this weekend will focus on Jesus’ rising from the dead and the change in heart it brought to his followers, who had just days earlier collapsed in grief following his crucifixion.
“If we’re Christian, we need to be living more in the victory of Jesus Christ,” Dollins said. “His victory is our victory.”
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, Northglenn:
“Broad and inclusive” is the theme Pastor Bill Davis wants to strike when he addresses his small congregation at Good Shepherd on Easter Sunday.
Just last month, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) officially expanded its definition of marriage to include same-sex unions after decades of debate on the issue. Davis said that discussion is in keeping with the church’s willingness to take a fresh look at things when need be.
He hopes his sermon, which will focus on the Gospel of Matthew, will provide his congregation with a foundation for a kind of rebirth that emphasizes coming together over facing off.
“We need to find what is a uniting piece of hope and love that we can grasp together,” he said.
John Aguilar: 303-954-1695, jaguilar@denverpost.com or twitter.com/abuvthefold
