The hall was filled with people, the message from the minister powerful.

“Go and testify to the way God works, for that is what Jesus’s life, ministry, death and resurrection is all about,” said the Rev. Cathlin Baker to conclude the Easter service last Sunday morning. “Jesus showed us the way God works. And so now we know — life overcomes death, and love conquers sin. We are Easter people, people who are to bring hope to the world, to bring light from the shadows. So go and tell, go and tell.”

Ordinarily Sunday services are held at the First Congregational Church in West Tisbury but this year they were held at the Agricultural Hall with more than 300 congregants in attendance. The hall was festooned with flowers brought by churchgoers and the backdrop to the makeshift pulpit was dramatic, a simple, hand-hewn wooden cross draped in gossamer white cloth sheened by sunlight. It seemed a perfect place for the celebration of resurrection, a building restored and laid up by many helping hands, a place redolent of communal hard work and celebration.

“On Easter Sunday, we experience resurrection,” said Reverend Baker. “Through the process we seek to become Easter people, able to profess a resurrection faith, a faith that endures through the darkness and comes into the light.”

— Sam Low