COLUMN: Grey Matters – What should the symbol for Easter be?

Where the cross says, “It is finished,” the empty tomb says, “It has begun anew.”

Recently I attended the Steinbach Bible College leadership conference. I noticed that all four Christian organizations sponsoring the event had crosses in their logo. With Easter approaching it made me wonder why crosses have become the dominant symbol in the church worldwide? The empty tomb is a symbol that should be more common. Afterall, if there was no empty tomb, the cross would have just been the death of a noble man.

The empty tomb of Easter is a significant image of threshold. Each of us experiences many thresholds in our lives. Not just the physical junctures where we move from room to room, but places which lead us to the next frontier, the next chapter of our life, a different atmosphere. They raise feelings of confusion, excitement, apprehension and hope.

When Jesus’ disciples approached the tomb with its rolled away stone, Mary Magdelene sat and cried, John stood outside and believed – Peter, though the last one, ran right in to get a closer look. Celtic author John O’Donohue writes, “It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge key thresholds, to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that occur there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.”

Easter morning began slowly like the dawn, not with trumpets, but with quiet wonder. A garden still heavy with sorrow. A stone rolled back. A space once filled now gloriously vacant. The empty tomb is one of the most paradoxical symbols: a void becomes the birthplace of hope. The beauty of this empty tomb is its gentle opening of a new threshold for all humanity. It does not shout of suffering or sacrifice like the cross does. It whispers of transformation like Jesus calling Mary Magdalene’s name as she cries outside the tomb.

Where the cross confronts us with the cost of love, the tomb reveals the triumph of that love. The tomb is not a monument to death. It is a threshold into life eternal. It is dawn after the world’s darkest night. A revived breath after the final sigh. Human endings are not the actual end.

Where the cross says, “It is finished,”

the empty tomb says, “It has begun anew.”

Where the cross declares forgiveness,

the empty tomb declares freedom to go further.

Where the cross breaks the chains,

the empty tomb opens the gate.

It is the symbol that invites us not just to believe,

but to arise and proclaim.

The cross shows us a love willing to die for us.

The empty tomb shows us a love powerful enough to live again.

May you have patience, strength and wisdom to cross your next threshold well. Some are easier than others. I close with the last verse from Katelyn Curran’s poem The Empty Tomb:

So when sorrows and troubles threaten to consume,

When life feel hopeless and fear continues looms,

Pause and remember—not only the cross but the empty tomb.

Gary Dyck is a chaplain and spiritual care provider at a hospital and personal care home in the Southeast.