FLOCKING TO EASTER CHURCHES ANTICIPATE BIG CROWDS.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

Millions of Christians throughout the Southland will join today in worship to sing the Easter refrain: ``He has risen.''

They will congregate on hilltops and under the stars. Squeeze into church pews with light shining through stained glass windows. Or pack circus tents and makeshift sanctuaries to sound their faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

They'll hear homilies on redemption, sermons on salvation and calls for transformation. All in the polyglot tongues common to Los Angeles.

``I call Easter the Super Bowl for most preachers,'' said the Rev. Dudley Rutherford, pastor of Shepherd of the Hills church in Porter Ranch. ``We have the largest attendance of the year. Because of the movie 'The Passion of the Christ,' it'll be even larger.''

The evangelical Shepherd of the Hills church has for years rented a 53,000-square-foot tent and added an extra 2,000 folding chairs this year for an anticipated 15,000 worshippers.

Fueled by Mel Gibson's blockbuster film on the final 12 hours of Christ's life, churches across Los Angeles are girding for a throng of Easter seekers.

Their message will be largely the same: 2,000 years ago Jesus was crucified as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. That he arose from his tomb to save the world from its pain.

``Inside the tomb, it was dark, it was damp, it was decayed,'' said Rutherford, who has worked 40 hours to perfect his sermon. ``The day of the resurrection, everything changed.

``The resurrection not only assures me that, after my earthly body dies, it will live again: It also assures me that, in this life, we can have victory over whatever it is you feel trapped in and have no way out.''

Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of nearly 5 million Catholics, will end Holy Week with Masses in English and Spanish at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown.

In the light of alabaster windows, the cardinal will bless his parishioners with Easter holy water as a reminder that, through the risen Christ, they have died and been born again through the waters of baptism.

That Christ died and now lives is not nonsense, Mahony said in an Easter message. In the face of all contrary evidence, he said, death can bring life.

``This Easter we commit ourselves once again to action that goes beyond our sense of consolation or feelings of well-being. We redouble our efforts to love when things do not seem to be going our way.''

In the San Fernando Valley, churches have prepared for lily-scented services of song, chanting and even incense.

At Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Hollywood Hills, many shut out of a Hollywood Bowl closed for renovations will gather at dawn to hear a litany of ministers and a choir of 120 members of Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita.

At Christ Memorial Church in Pacoima, the pews will rock with a gospel choir and the renowned gospel voices of Bill and Renee Morris and Pastor Andre Crouch.

When he was nine, Crouch penned the Easter standard ``The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power'' - inspired, he says, by the divine hand of God.

``This is going to blow the house down,'' said Assistant Pastor Eden Joshua of the gospel service. ``The whole story of Easter is the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity, to be rejuvenated again.''

At A Way of Life Church in Sherman Oaks, members will worship for the last time in a backyard addition at the home of Rev. Beverly Gaard, a former actress who once worked with the Three Stooges. After 30 years, the metaphysical congregation will soon move to a larger sanctuary in Toluca Lake.

``What is Easter to me?'' asked Gaard, a follower of the teachings of the ancient Essenes. ``It is the awakening of the spirit of the God within you ... within each and every individual.''

At St. Peter Apostolic Armenian Church, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, primate of the Western Diocese and 1 million Armenians, will conduct one of a pair of two-hour services.

The Orthodox celebration ends days of fasting, will smell of incense and resound with chants spoken in Gravar, the ancient language of Armenia.

``It's the most important day of the Armenian and Orthodox Church, more important than Christmas,'' said church deacon Onnik Kiremidjian of the resurrection liturgy.

``It's wonderful. It's a time of reflection, really. It's a time of transformation, of existential self-scrutiny.''

And at West Valley Christian Church in West Hills, ministers who for weeks have been preaching on lessons learned from Gibson's ``The Passion of the Christ'' have set up 400 chairs in the church gym to make way for an expected double attendance on Easter.

If there was no resurrection, said church Pastor Glenn Kirby, all Christianity is in vain.

``The cross and the resurrection are like the two huge wings of an airplane,'' he said. ``The plane cannot fly without both.

Dana Bartholomew, [phone]

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Mike Engquist of Norwalk gives a lift to his iguana Louie, ready for the blessing traditionally done the day before Easter.

(2) A stream of pet lovers files past Cardinal Roger Mahony on Olvera Street for Saturday's annual Blessing of the Animals.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer