Where to celebrate Easter sunrise services in Southern Nevada

While concluding his first Easter sunrise service at New Song Anthem Lutheran church a few years ago, the Rev. Paul Block noticed two jets criss-crossing in the sky, leaving contrails that looked just like a cross.

Serendipity or divine stage direction? It’s hard to say, although such surprises probably are part of the appeal outdoor Easter sunrise services hold for many Southern Nevadans.

Last Easter, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of sunrise services around the valley. While many will return this year, Boulder City’s interfaith service at Hemenway Valley Park — a Southern Nevada Easter tradition for more than 30 years — still will be on hiatus.

The service typically attracts about 400 guests, said Kathy Whitman, chair of the Boulder City Interfaith Lay Council, which organizes the service. However, state-mandated public gathering limits of 250 made limiting this year’s attendance difficult.

“We can certainly see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we just couldn’t figure out a way to limit it to 250,” she said. “It just didn’t seem fair.”

Whitman will miss the nondenominational gathering, as well as the natural touches that can come with outdoor services.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. The service “overlooks the lake … and sometimes Bighorn sheep come down and join us.”

However, a decades-long run of Easter sunrise services will resume at Palm Mortuaries. Services will begin at 6:30 a.m. at Palm Boulder Highway Mortuary and Cemetery, 800 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson, and Palm Eastern Mortuary and Cemetery, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.

Had last year’s services not been canceled, this would mark the 36th year that Palm has offered Easter services, said Glenn Abercrombie, general manager of Palm Eastern Mortuary and Cemetery.

The service at Palm Eastern typically draws 1,000 while the Palm Boulder Highway service usually hosts about 200, Abercrombie said. Because the service can be heard throughout the property, some attendees sit graveside and “enjoy it with their relatives that are interred here.”

This year’s services are limited to 250 people. To register, call 702-464-8500 for Palm Eastern and 702-464-8440 for Palm Boulder Highway. Services also will be livestreamed on Palm’s website.

Easter sunrise service has been a tradition at Christ Lutheran Church, 111 N. Torrey Pines Drive, since the church’s creation in 1964, said the Rev. Bill Phillips, senior pastor.

“There are certain people who love it, and others, it would be too early for them,” he said. “We’ll get just, maybe, 20 people in the Prayer Garden. We worship outside, then move indoors.”

The service, which begins at 6:30 a.m., lasts about 50 minutes, Phillips said. “I think it’s something different than what folks get every week in worship. It just feels a little closer to the Bible story of Jesus in the garden tomb.”

The Rev. William Kenny might have the best seat in the house at Holy Spirit Catholic Church’s annual Easter sunrise Mass.

“At 5:30 in the morning it’s pitch dark,” he said. “Usually, by the middle of Mass, the sun rises, and I’m facing East — I’m facing the people — so I see the sunrise.

“I have everybody stand up. I say, ‘Please turn around and greet the sun. Happy Easter.’ It’s a beautiful experience.”

Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 5830 Mesa Park Drive, has been celebrating Easter sunrise Mass for about 10 years, Kenny said. “When we first started, we thought that a few people would be coming, trying to avoid the normal crowds at other Masses.”

Now, the Mass draws 300 to 400 each year, most of whom like the casual nature of the service.

“A lot of times, people come to Easter services and want to dress in their finest,” Kenny said. “For this Mass they come in jeans and sweats and so on.

“And every year, it’s been rather cold on Easter Sunday, at least that time of the morning. Sometimes they bring blankets. We ask them to bring their own lawn chairs or folding chairs and we have 1,000 or so all set up.”

This year’s Mass will begin at 5:30 a.m. at the church’s Peace Garden, on the building’s eastern side. Registration isn’t required, but guests will have to socially distance.

The Rev. Jim Davis, executive ministry pastor of Calvary Chapel Las Vegas, 7175 W. Oquendo Road, said the church’s Easter sunrise service typically draws “a couple hundred people.

“Being out-of-doors, it’s a very casual, sort of laid-back atmosphere and just a way to celebrate an important event in Christianity, which is the Resurrection of Christ.”

This year’s service is at 6 a.m., and “because it’s outdoors … people can socially distance,” he said.

Davis finds Easter sunrise service “something special” because it recalls “that morning and what it must have been like when they came and found an empty tomb.

In addition to possible cross-making jets, participants in New Song Anthem’s Easter sunrise service this year will incorporate into their sunrise service the church’s signature outdoor crosses and a model of an empty tomb.

According to Block, worshippers will walk from the crosses to the tomb. “It’s like a bridge from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, so it’s very evocative.”

Easter sunrise service at New Song usually draws about 60 people, he said. “I don’t know what to expect with COVID this year. Hopefully we’ll get about the same. It’s just good to be outside.”

And, Block said, “there’s just kind of an intimacy to the service. It’s kind of the awakening of the day. It’s less hurried.”

Contact John Przybys at jprzybys @reviewjournal.com. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.