This dawning light
The Rev. Dr. John Ashworth Gardner and the Easter Sunrise Service
On April 10, 1955, at around 5:42 a.m., dedicated attendees of the annual Easter Sunrise Service atop Mt. Davidson gathered for the 33rd year in a row. The service proceedings were broadcast over KYA from 5:30 to 6:15, for those not yet out of bed. The Rev. Dr. John A. Gardner, the new executive director of the San Francisco Council of Churches, preached the Easter Sermon, which he’d titled “Hail Him Lord of All!” Gardner had been elected to his position in November, just five months prior.
Gardner was an ordained Presbyterian minister and organizational leader involved in the height of the ecumenical movement of the 1950s and 1960s in both San Francisco and Chicago. Gardner was born on November 17, 1904, in England. In 1913, his family arrived in the U.S., settling in Chicago. He took to the pulpit of Essex Community Church in Chicago in October 1926. “I have been especially interested in developing group activities as a feeder to church work. In this way, in spite of the depression, Essex Church was transformed into a church of young people,” Gardner writes in a statement regarding his education and work experience, found amongst his personal papers, which live at the Presbyterian Historical Society. He remained at Essex until January 1937, working hard within his community to build relationships that would help the parishioners survive the Great Depression. In the first month of the new year, he became the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Midland, Michigan, where he remained until he was called to work with the San Francisco Council of Churches in 1954.
Gardner was executive director of the San Francisco Council of Churches for three years. The first year, he delivered the sermon at the Easter Sunrise Service, where he is quoted as saying: “We, too, have been waiting through the night for this dawning light. And the night itself is a symbol of every dark, uncertain passage. With the new day we sense the miracle of the trees and the sky and the sea. Here in this sacred spot we gather as the children of God, as those who seek light, with hearts open to the central miracle of existence.”
The first Easter Sunrise Service on Mt. Davidson was held on April 1, 1923. “This is the thirty-third (consecutive) Annual Sunrise Easter Service, held under the auspices of the Citizens of San Francisco. The services are non-sectarian, and as many as 50,000 people have climbed the mountain on an Easter Sunday morning to attend these services.”
San Francisco is a city built on a hill — or, more accurately, seven of them. Mt. Davidson is the tallest of the bunch, made even taller by the enormous permanent steel and concrete cross that stands on its peak. The Reverend John Ashworth Gardner Personal Papers are held at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, and within them lives ephemera relating to the Easter Sunrise Services, organized by Gardner’s Council of Churches. Found amongst them is a “Sketch of Mt. Davidson and the Sunrise Easter Service on this Mountain,” which offers details on the installation of the 103-foot-tall cross. 750 cubic yards of concrete, 30 tons of reinforced steel, and 30,000 feet of lumber for concrete forms — all this material went into the creation of the Mt. Davidson cross. The arms of the cross reach 39 feet from tip to tip. “By day it can be seen from most parts of San Francisco; at night, brilliantly illuminated by electric floodlights, it is visible from much greater distances … It is said by well-known lighting engineers that the cross is the best outdoor lighted structure in the world,” the pamphlet claims. It was first lit up on the night of March 24, 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt “pressed a gold key in Washington, D.C., and over the Western Union Telegraph Company’s wires sent a spark that ignited the electric current.”
At the 1956 Annual Meeting of the Council, the group reminisced on the success found in 1955 — including a gathering of 16,000 attendants at San Francisco’s Cow Palace for their “Festival of Faith,” a “service of prayer for peace and the United Nations, ‘each in his own manner,’ sponsored with other faiths; administration by our Council.” Following that announcement was language notifying readers that the annual Easter Service on Mount Davidson was “Now a Council Project”: “The Easter Service on Mount Davidson, sponsored since 1923 by a citizens’ committee, is by vote of the committee a Council of Churches’ undertaking. Dr. Gardner delivered the sermon in 1955, and music was by our church choirs.”
Toward the end of the pamphlet is “Dr. Gardner’s Message,” a letter penned by the executive director of the council in which he mentions his appreciation for his work, and for the efforts of his colleagues. “This has been a thrilling year for me,” Gardner writes, “with the Festival of Faith, the privilege of delivering the Easter Sunrise message … and the magnificent support.” A new slogan, “Building Friendship Bridges,” had been adopted, and a new seal designed — it was introduced for the first time on the front page of the pamphlet. “We do this between races, between the faiths, amongst the churches and denominations, between youth groups, and uniting Christian laymen,” Gardner explains. “In this city where bridges are the symbol, wondrously designed channels of communication, spanning deep waters, steady and strong in the strain of every storm — what better slogan could we find for our Council of Churches than Building Friendship Bridges?”
Other publications from the Council bolster this intention, with slogans and language like “MASS MEETINGS BRING THE CHURCHES TOGETHER IN CHRISTIAN UNITY” emblazoned on posters advertising the Easter Sunrise Service of 1957.
Gardner left his position at the Council of Churches in 1957 to become the Executive Associate Director of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, a position he remained in for a decade. While there, he oversaw the purchase of a skyscraper for the Federation and the planning of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at Soldiers Field on July 10, 1966, when a crowd of more than 30,000 gathered to hear King speak about wealth inequality and housing discrimination.
Gardner spent the last two years of his career as a parish minister before retiring to North Carolina in 1970. He remained active in his community as a guest minister until his death in late August of 1990. In a sermon titled “Behold I Make All Things New” penned in the mid-1960s, Gardner writes, “Without the power to make things new — to rise above the routine — the institutions of this life decay. If there is a new wind of human relationships in the Church today — a reaching out to one another such as never before in history — is it not because under God it must be so?”
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