Burning Question
April 9th, 2007 by Sonja

Here is my question for Easter Monday. Why is it that our primary symbol for Easter is the cross? Actually that is the primary symbol for our faith. I think that is odd.

After all, lots of people died on crosses. It was the primary form of capital punishment during the Roman Empire. The miracle isn’t that Jesus died on a cross.

The miracle is that He was resurrected. It seems to me that our primary symbol ought to be the empty tomb.

Empty Tomb

That is not a very good marketing tool. It doesn’t lend itself to logos and bumperstickers. It doesn’t make a very good necklace (as I discovered):

Tomb NecklaceThat just doesn’t wear well (as I discovered at BlingdomofGod). It’s not very self-explanatory.

I understand that part of the symbolism of the cross is that Jesus became an atoning sacrifice on the cross. That is where He atoned for our sins and took them upon Himself. However, the deeper magic was incomplete with His death. The final act came with the resurrection and that is symbolized with the empty tomb. So it seems to me that the tomb is the symbol of the real miracle, the deep, deep love of Jesus for us. The cross is merely the beginning.


3 Responses  
  • Mindy writes:
    April 9th, 200710:51 amat

    WOW….good food for thought. You are correct.

           
  • jamie writes:
    April 9th, 20078:56 pmat

    Oh….I have felt this way for a while! Great post. I think much of why we focus on the cross is out of the same mind-think that causes us to operate out of and focus on the fall. In some ways, you’d think that we’d not had the resurrection. I’m tired and I feel like I’m not being clear, so I hope you understand what I’m trying to say :)

           
  • Paul writes:
    April 10th, 200710:00 amat

    It’s an awesome point – the resurected christ is an amazing focus, not least with the promise of phyiscial resurection for us all and life that transcends even the best of what we have tasted now.

    For me i find the cross a powerful symbol, not least of how God who is above all things broke himself to the lowest of all things so that all of us could be included too – God for me becomes not only a God who can say he is there for me at my lowest but can say he has been to that lowest point too.

    When Christ is before the Father praying for me, the Father not only sees me through Christ but Christ also fully understands me. Rejected, yes! Betrayed, yes! in pain, yes! alone, yes! hurting, yes! doubting, yes! hoping beyond hope, yes! and so on.

    OR as Bauckham puts it:

    “The Servant, in both his humiliation and his exaltation, is therefore not mere;ly a human figure distinguised from God, but, in both his humiliation and his exaltation, belongs to the identity of the unique God. This God is not only the high and lofty one who reigns from his throne in the high and holy place; he also abases himself to the conditioned of the crushed and lowely cf Isa 57:15 ‘For thus says the exalted and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are crushed and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit ofthe lowly and the heart of the crushed.”

           


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