startling

Jesus asked her, “Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener and said, “Sir, if you have taken his body away, please tell me, so I can go and get him.” Then Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni.” The Aramaic word “Rabboni” means “Teacher.” John 20:15-16 

It’s easy to take for granted the periodic patterns that follow a seasonal cycle. As a chill descends upon a summer in full bloom, I delight in the fall of color that leads to a barren twig, because I know that spring is coming. In the lull of winter’s rest, however, I often miss those first few buds, and the transformation from what looks like death to life appears almost instantaneous. But the surprise of what is not surprising at all is a wonder in itself. And the mystery of what is not mysterious to me is the nature of Easter.

Like when an image, idea, insight appears suddenly out of nowhere, seemingly outside the neurons of my brain, I can only marvel at the thought and contemplate its source. Or when I describe particle-wave duality, explain Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, teach statistical mechanics, the words may sound a little flat, and yet inspire awe in the open-minded.

It requires a bit of imagination to reason through data that is foreign to our everyday observations. What was it like to see blood and water flow from the side of the one who was pierced, to see that body placed in a tomb, to see a stone rolled in front of the entrance, to see that same one standing in front of you saying your name? A unique sequence of events composed as a study of true love and presented as a model of new life.