I was up at 4 a.m. and in the dorm restroom shaving, when a classmate walked in, having just arrived home from a long evening out. He looked at me, a bit puzzled, and then said something about the day and night meeting.

I drove to the sunrise service, picking up a few kids along the way. When we got there, it was barely light, there were just a handful of people gathered, and it was snowing. We managed to get through one a cappella song, a Scripture reading and a very brief message.

The service ended by 5:45, and I began to wonder what the plan was until Sunday School at 9:45. Whose idea was this, anyway?

John 20:1 says, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance."

There was no worship service planned that day, no singing at the tomb, no brief meditation on the meaning of resurrection. There was also no snow. And no clue as to what had happened.

"So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple." (It seems as though none of them had slept much that night.)

"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" Mary said.

Easter is where day and night meet. In the account, we see grief, sleeplessness, panic, loss, mystery, a sense of betrayal, hurt, crying -- and all of that which comes from darkness. It is met by the dawning morning -- belief, recognition, acceptance, joy, renewal. The result is good news, "I have seen the Lord."

So the risen Lord Jesus meets us most profoundly when we are in the darkness, when it is night and we cannot see or understand.

"Woman," Jesus said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni."

The day meets the night on Easter.