If a “miracle” is “something that happens outside the natural order of things,” any gardener can tell you that resurrection is not “miracle.” Each spring, I am astonished to discover plants I thought were dead for sure, have come back to life. Because I am unfamiliar with growing in this climatic zone, everything in the spring is a surprise to me. All of you, familiar with gardening here, tell me it’s all in the realm of the expected. Then why is the resurrection a miracle? If all life belongs to God, why would it surprise us when God chooses to give life again? Resurrection is as “logical” as trilliums disappearing at the end of summer and reappearing with blossoms in the spring.

If we choose not to call the resurrection of Christ a “miracle,” then what do we call it? How about “invitation.” From God to us, an invitation to experience the new thing God is doing, an invitation to life. Not remembering, as Isaiah says, the old ways. This new thing is radically different, more alive than anything we have ever imagined. But how do we know? I mean, about Jesus’ resurrection being invitation—to us?

We know because of the women and what happens at the tomb. These women, who have followed Jesus through Galilee into Jerusalem, who participated in the Last Supper, then witnessed the trial and crucifixion and burial—they are the ones who catch the meaning of the two dazzling visitors. Now we, with our modern eyes, might be inclined to understand these two tomb dazzlers in terms of sequined clothing and lighting effects—think Liberace or Jennifer Lopez. But Magdalene, Joanna, Mary and company knew the Ark of the Covenant, so they immediately recognize the allusion to the two cherubim on its top. These figures formed the mercy seat and the throne of God. A Jew would not expect to see God there, because their God did not allow images. A Jew would know the empty space between the cherubim signified the very presence of God. Rather than thinking “rock star” as we might have, the women at the tomb that Easter morning thought “space in between—this is of God!” Once these women had shifted from thinking “no body,” their hearts of faith could say, “God is in the space between.”

The angels or messengers or dazzlers or whatever they were let them know they were looking for the wrong thing. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” they ask. It wasn’t the “nothing there”—the lack of a body—that proved the resurrection. What made the resurrection more than an empty tomb for the women was the memory the dazzlers triggered: Jesus had told them about his death and resurrection ahead of time. In remembering they could recognize, and in recognition they could understand. Only then—even in this brand new thing—only then is the space between no longer empty, but something of God, a something that prepared them for future events—for experiencing the Risen Christ and Pentecost, when the Spirit of the Risen Christ was given to enable all of them (and all of us) to daily, intimately experience the One who died and was raised. The proof of the risen Christ—that which makes the resurrection not “miracle” but “invitation”—is in the experience of the Risen One. Knowing the Christ.

I talked to someone (not from Springwater) this week, who was experiencing discouragement, hoplessness. “What is the meaning of my life,” she asked, “if twenty years of creative work isn’t recognized or appreciated by anyone else? Getting a job and earning money would pay the bills, but it feels like wage slaving would make meaningless the labor of those years of creativity.” The tomb was empty for her, but it held no invitation to new life, because the body was simply gone. “No body” meant hopelessness. There is no meaning for our present in dead dreams of the past. Remember, but remember that it is a new thing our God is doing. If the meaning for your life depends on other people appreciating the fine job you are doing, looking for a body will not prove the resurrection for you. If all your hard work only makes sense if you experience “success”—money or fame or something else—then looking for a body will not prove the resurrection for you. If being high scorer on the team and election as Most Valuable Player is what makes you a worthwhile human being, looking for a body will not prove the resurrection for you. If your kids have to be more popular than everyone else’s before you know you are a good parent, looking for a body will not prove the resurrection for you. If a debt-free life and promotions at work and being caught up in the yard are what define your life, looking for a body will not prove the resurrection for you. Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

If Jesus’ resurrection was about getting the body out of the tomb, the body may be gone, but it’s a miracle without meaning. Even if we hear the witnesses testifying to its absence, unless we see the presence of God in the space in between, unless we believe the empty tomb is an invitation to us to new life, it’s a miracle with no “so what?”

We must believe that, in the economy of salvation, God never wastes anything. For my friend, maybe taking on another creative project is part of her redemption, part of God’s new thing for her. Maybe taking a job wouldn’t be “wage slavery,” but just a way to pay bills. In the space where money worry used to be, maybe there is now room tolet God do a new thing. Or maybe there is another option, as yet un-revealed to her, some new thing that God desires to do. What is required is the faith that allows God to be present in the space in between. The space between the way things are and the way things ought to be, the space between our expectations and realities, the space between what we wish would happen and how things turn out.

It takes trust. We step out of deadness—believing that meaning comes from what we do—and accept God’s invitation to believe that meaning comes from God. Any meaning our lives might have, any lasting good we might do, is not because of who we are or what we do. Meaning happens because God wills it. Meaning belongs to God. What may appear futile and pointless to us may be God’s gift through us. What seemed to be simply a brutal death on the cross was God’s gift, because the one participating in it—Jesus the Christ—offered it to God in obedience, trusting that God would use it for redemption.

What if we believed that about what we do? What if we believed that all the things we did—changing diapers and memorizing spelling words, driving truck and pushing brooms, pruning trees and raising animals, wiping noses and just being present, working at the computer and getting out of bed yet another day—all of those things were part of God’s economy of salvation? What if we believed that every meal that finally makes it to the table, every day of honest labor, every piece of learning, is a critical piece in God’s plan for salvation? It is not too far-fetched to believe that what we do in integrity and obedience and love could be used for God’s plan. Stop looking for the living among the dead. To offer your life in obedience and trust is to allow God to still be in charge of meaning. It’s a new thing. It is for your redemption.