I drove up to Smith Mountain Lake just 8 days ago, having set aside some time to prepare for Holy Week and Easter. Resurrection was on my mind, but not in my heart, for as I drove north up Highway 220, it was snowing like crazy! Completely out of sight were the branches of yellow forsythia I had been happy to see just the day before, and buried under a blanket of heavy, cold, and wet white stuff were the bright yellow daffodils that normally trumpet spring’s arrival rather than winter’s return.

When we lived in Texas, people were fond of saying that “If you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour.” Most Texans, I’m assuming, have never visited North Carolina! But as for me, I like predictability, I like knowing what’s coming down the pike, and I like to be able to have some certainty over whether today is going to be a turtleneck and a sweater kind of day or a shorts and a t-shirt kind of day.

The unpredictability of snow in springtime aside, I’d venture to say that most of us like a certain amount of predictability in our lives. We like to have a fairly good idea of what to expect and when to expect it. We like to have at least the semblance of a plan for the day ahead, if not a finely tuned list of things to do. We don’t like to be in the dark, not knowing what’s coming and what to expect. While all of us can handle and enjoy a certain amount of spontaneity, we’d be hard pressed to live that way all day, everyday. It seems to be in our human nature to want to manage chaos, maintain control, and live with a comforting and comfortable level of predictability.

Now think back through the gospel story from John today, and “see” in your mind’s eye the disciple, Mary Magdalene, as she sets off in the dark. The time is sometime before the dawn, and she is on her way to the tomb where her Lord was buried late Friday afternoon. She “has a plan” as she sets out; she knows the task that is before her. She’s carrying the perfumed oils and spices she will use to anoint the body of Jesus – a job there wasn’t time to complete on Friday before sundown and the beginning of the Sabbath.

The task is enormously sad, but it’s a predictable one, and it’s the final gesture of love she can show to her Teacher, even though he is dead. Loving gestures are often the ways we try and manage chaos. If we can’t fix it, we can at least try and make it better. If we can’t undo what’s done, we can at least attempt to make amends.

Mary arrives at the tomb and finds that the stone has been rolled away. It’s still dark, and now she’s “in the dark” as she comes face to face with a reality that was not predictable at all. What is going through her mind as she runs back, retracing her steps, trying to find her way through the darkness to tell the other disciples what she has found – or not found – to be precise? Chaos has erupted, and the questions in Mary’s mind must be spinning chaotically – “Where is his body?” “Who would take it?” “Who would do such a thing?” “What will the others say?”

Once Mary has delivered her unpredictable and distressing message, Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb to see for themselves if what Mary has told them is true. Entering the tomb, Peter and the other disciple find the linen cloth that had shrouded the body, as well as the cloth that had covered the face of Jesus. Chaos continues, confusion reigns, questions abound, but outside the tomb the darkness is beginning to lessen, and the dawn is breaking.

Alone again, Mary weeps at the entrance to the empty tomb. Perhaps she falls to her knees and in her anguish, looks into the tomb where she sees two figures dressed in white, sitting on either side of the rock ledge on which the body of Jesus had been laid. When asked the reason for her tears, she repeats what she had told the disciples only moments ago. And now turning, Mary sees someone else, the gardener perhaps… until he calls her by name. “Mary.”

And in hearing her name spoken, understanding dawns. “Teacher!” she shouts with joy. It is finally morning. A new day has dawned. Yet it is not just another day. It is a new day altogether. It is, in fact, the first day of the re-creation of the world itself.

Then and now, the resurrection is a dawning reality. Mary didn’t grasp it all at once, the disciples didn’t grasp it all at once, and neither do we. In fact, most of us spend a lifetime living into the reality of the resurrection, the reality of a living Savior, the reality of a risen Christ, the sheer good-ness of the Good News.

And that is perhaps as God means it to be for us. We don’t understand it all at once, this resurrection reality, as if we could somehow sum it all up and have all the answers, neatly and forever. The world, as it turns out, is not predictable after all. God has overturned the predictable in breaking the bonds of death. Death no longer spells the end, but the beginning.

For us, just like for Mary and for the disciples, resurrection reality is not finally a doctrine, or an event to be believed or disbelieved. Resurrection reality is not theology and it is not history, although it is, in part, all of those things. But if we focus on doctrine, or theology or history; on belief or disbelief, we miss the point altogether, which is that resurrection is a living reality. We have, in our midst, a Risen Lord, one who calls us to live with him in a resurrected reality, the dawning of not only a new day but a new world.

“Don’t be afraid. He is risen.” That message is not just for the disciples of Jesus two thousand years ago – that message is for us here today. Perhaps the place to begin is to teach ourselves to look, and to help each other look, for resurrection reality in the world about us. Where have there been glimpses of the Risen Christ in our midst, even if we at first thought that it was just the gardener?

In any moment where love abounds, where forgiveness is accepted, where help is offered, where needs are met, where problems are sorted out, where reconciliation is affected, where conflicts are resolved, and where love wins out – THERE is the Risen Christ – there is resurrected reality – there are the signs of the new creation of the world that God set in motion on the dawn of that first Easter morning.

The reality of resurrection doesn’t mean not noticing and not caring about all that’s wrong with the world we live in. But it does mean that what is wrong will be made right; will be re-created and re-figured, and that, with the reality of the Risen Christ as our Teacher, Guide and Companion, we are to look for the ways in which we can participate in a world of resurrected reality. Sometimes it means looking really hard, and sometimes, there it is right in front of us.

In the 16th century, Fra Angelica wrote, “The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness,
Could we but see, And to see, we have only to look. I pray that for now, and forever,
the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”

The Resurrection came as a dawning reality to the disciples. It comes so to us, as well. The resurrection reality – the new creation we now live in – sometimes is hidden in shadow and sometimes is in plain view. Mary came, slowly and unpredictably, hesitantly first and then with joyous acclamation and abandon, to see radiance and glory in the lessening darkness and gradual brightening of that first Easter morning. The Risen Christ calls us by name, just like he called Mary, to see him in the sunshine and the shadows of life as we know it, as we experience it, and as we live it.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is with us, he is real; he is resurrected He calls each of us by name. To see him, we have only to look. Amen.