President Gordon B. Hinckley gave a moving talk about the resurrection of the Savior in response to a question about why we do not use the cross as a symbol in the Church. As I reflected on the one year anniversary of my father’s passage, his words really struck me.

He emphasized the sorrow and despair that filled the heart of Christ’s followers as he suffered on the cross and when he was laid down in the tomb. The apostles had not yet truly understood. They had not yet grasped the fact that Christ was to be conqueror over death itself. 

“We cannot forget that. We must never forget it, for here our Savior, our Redeemer, the Son of God, gave himself a vicarious sacrifice for each of us. But the gloom of that dark evening before the Jewish Sabbath, when his lifeless body was taken down and hurriedly laid in a borrowed tomb, drained away the hope of even his most ardent and knowing disciples. They were bereft, not understanding what he had told them earlier. Dead was the Messiah in whom they believed. Gone was their Master in whom they had placed all of their longing, their faith, their hope. He who had spoken of everlasting life, he who had raised Lazarus from the grave, now had died as surely as all men before him had died. Now had come the end to his sorrowful, brief life. That life had been as Isaiah had long before foretold: He was ‘despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.'”

Unlike the disciples, we have no excuses for forgetting the glorious truth. Christ has risen from the dead. Therefore we know that we will rise again. Yet, we often live our lives as if that is not true. We sorrow or feel aggrieved as if there is no promise of eternal life. 

It is the miracle of the empty tomb that makes Christianity worthwhile. Without that promise, we would have no source of joy or consolation, and no reason to hope for tomorrow. We would be like all other men except even more miserable still. We would be following a false messiah and a mere mortal. But fortunately, that is not the case.

“On Calvary he was the dying Jesus. From the tomb he emerged the living Christ. The cross had been the bitter fruit of Judas’ betrayal, the summary of Peter’s denial. The empty tomb now became the testimony of His divinity, the assurance of eternal life, the answer to Job’s unanswered question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14.)

      Having died, he might have been forgotten, or, at best, remembered as one of many great teachers whose lives are epitomized in a few lines in the books of history. Now, having been resurrected, he became the Master of Life. Now, with Isaiah, his disciples could sing with certain faith: “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” …      

      Well did Mary cry, “Rabboni!” (John 20:16) when first she saw the risen Lord, for master now he was in very deed, master not only of life, but of death itself. Gone was the sting of death, broken the victory of the grave.”
Knowing Christ has risen gives me such great comfort and reassurance. I know that this life is not the end. I know that I will one day see my dad again. I know that we will rise again in the flesh and be able to embrace each other once more. That is all possible because of an empty tomb and a savior who rose above the stain of the cross.