Seventy community members from West Roxbury and other neighborhoods gathered at The Gardens at Gethsemane Cemetery on Baker St. on April 5, Easter Sunday, to attend the 30th annual sunrise service. This event brought together families and longtime friends as they celebrated the holiday in a non-denominational ceremony.

Attendees gathered underneath the tent to listen to saxophone music played by Elan Trotman, a professor at Berklee College of Music, and listen to songs performed by Athena Wilson and Demetrios Tsaniklides, Jr.

Additionally, Pastor Pete Kane of the Calvary Baptist Church in Dedham gave a 20-minute sermon that described how “sorrow becomes joy,” quoting an idea presented by a passage from John 3:16 – 21.

“God brings joy to our lives not by substitution, but by transformation. But that transformation is by substitution,” Pastor Kane explained to attendees. He noted how Jesus used the metaphor of how the pain a woman experiences in childbirth transitions to the joy of becoming a mother to help his disciples understand how they will feel after his crucifixion and eventual resurrection.

“What we try and do in life sometimes is create our own joy… but there’s no joy so joyful as the new birth,” he emphasized.

“We want to give the same message of rebirth,” explained Alan MacKinnon, president of The Gardens Cemetery. When McKinnon became president in 1995, he said he visited other cemeteries in California, Texas and Florida, where they put on other events besides funerals, to bring the community members to them regularly. MacKinnon saw an opportunity to revive a service that was last held in The Gardens in the 1970s and align the cemetery with more progressive ones. “We want to bring people when it’s not a sad, bad [and] scary occasion,” MacKinnon added.

Every year, The Gardens invites clergy members from different faiths, including Catholicism and Protestantism, to make the service and message of rebirth aligned with the different faiths of community members.

After the sermon and a closing music performance of “He Lives” from Wilson accompanied by Trotman, attendees enjoyed a free breakfast courtesy of Putterham Grille of Chestnut Hill. Staff filled plates with scrambled eggs, frittata, sausage and bacon for attendees, and everyone sat down to enjoy an Easter breakfast with each other.

For some, this event is a family tradition, such as with Dee and Mike O’Keefe of West Roxbury.

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“I started coming here with my husband after my mother-in-law died about 30 years ago,” Dee explained. “She was a strong woman of faith who saw a lot of heart.” Dee noted that she saw branches create the shape of a heart, a country hearts tree, to reflect this idea. “You can see it if your heart is full,” she added. “Even though the sun isn’t shining,” explained Mike, in relation to the rainy weather that morning, “You can see the sun rise over the tree, and you swear you saw the sermon [before you],” he added.

“I felt God in my heart,” noted Nicole Johnson of Dorchester. When she heard Pastor Kane’s sermon and ending prayer, they hit home for her. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff in my life, and this has helped me to get through it. I realized God has been guiding me for the whole time.”

Additionally, this event brought longtime friends together for the first time in many years. Bill Lombardi, a U.S. Air Force veteran and elder of the Wollomonopoag Indian Council in Mansfield, Massachusetts saw his childhood friend for the first time in 20 years at the service.

“We knew each other since first grade,” Lombardi explained. “The sermon, music, camaraderie and the breakfast were amazing,” making the reunion memorable.

Now that this year’s sunrise service has ended, Eunice Davis, who runs The Gardens’ family services will begin planning 2027’s service.

“It’s a year-long plan,” Davis explained. “We will spread the word to churches so the message [of the sunrise service] reaches the people, so they can come together.”

Learn more about The Gardens and its upcoming events at https://thegardenscemetery.org/.