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On the holiest day of the Christian calendar, worshippers gathered Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of the Christ and the living hope that means to those who believe in his redemption.

Many churches, including Emmanuel Episcopal, have met mostly virtually for the past year, but with coronavirus infection rates falling and more and more people being vaccinated, many resumed in-person worship. Emmanuel did so cautiously, gathering outdoors in the garden for the Eucharist and receiving the sacrament in one kind, the bread.

“It seems like it’s been two years!” Father Jim Trimble said, greeting the congregation and telling them how glad he was to see them.

Beneath a cloudless azure sky, birdsong and a distant rooster’s crowing mingled with the choir’s hymns and the recitation of the liturgy by the people.

“The unfathomable has happened,” the pastor said in his homily. Jesus has risen from the dead and gone ahead of his followers to Galilee. We, too, he said, must in a sense go back to Galilee, back to the beginning, for Easter is a journey, the priest said. “We are going to be traveling for the next 50 days to discover who we really are,” he said, emphasizing the Easter is not only a day, it is a season of the church year. Eastertide continues this year until May 23.