When some people think of Easter, they think of a bunny rabbit. Others would point to other fertility symbols and signs of Spring, springing forth out of the ordinary, the plain, the seemingly dead: butterflies, flowers, and the like. Christians might think of the empty cross, or of a cross with flowers on it: the instrument of shameful death, transformed into something else.

But in the midst of all those other things, I think about the stone—not as a symbol of the resurrection itself, but as a means of reminding us to open ourselves to the journey, to persevere with the understanding and knowing and embracing that life-changing, world-shifting, reality-jolting event.

If we want to persist with an Easter bunny, perhaps in addition to the jelly beans and fertility symbols, the Easter bunny might start delivering geodes! Stones that look like one thing—plain enough—but on closer inspection, and with a bit of perseverance and some hard knocks, reveal entire and more glorious dimensions.

The stone in the Easter story reminds us that there is more going on in this resurrection event than any of us first can grasp or understand. The stone reminds us that with God there are possibilities beyond our logic, beyond our wisdom, beyond our puny known world.


The stone reminds us that in the midst of death we are in life. Alleluia!