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This is one of the worst ironies of life. When we work so hard to save our lives, we are actually doing little more than anointing the dead. Even if we spend years achieving our dreams, all we have really done is close the distance between death and us. As Jesus kept trying to explain, those who try to save their lives will lose them. Eventually you will lose your job, your relationships, your health, and everything you are pushing to save.

The story always ends in loss. Every wonderful thing in life comes to an end. We know that. People never come to my office for pastoral counseling because they have doubts about death and loss. No one has trouble believing in death. That's why we push so hard. We want to get as much as we can out of our jobs, relationships, and health before we lose them.

So Easter is not some ancient story. We can all take our place beside those three women wondering what it will take to push against the stone. How much hard work, money, love, and sacrifice do our hopes and dreams require of us?

When the women arrived at the tomb, they were startled to discover that the stone was already rolled back. So they walked inside, where they saw an angel in white. And they became "alarmed" (Mark 16:4). The angel said, "Don't be alarmed." Angels always say that in the Bible. But how can it not be alarming to see a messenger from God? The women soon discovered, however, that the messenger wasn't nearly as alarming as the message.

"Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." Then, we are told, "the women fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them."

This is the element of Easter that is so often missing from our celebrations. We think of Easter as a time for bunnies and little chicks, colorful eggs, and little girls in cute new dresses. But we ought to be thinking about grown women, with their dresses hiked up to their knees, running with terror out of a cemetery. Easter was not a happily-ever-after ending pasted onto the otherwise frightening ending of Jesus on the cross. The way Mark tells the story, it's Easter that is the frightening part of the story.

Along with Joseph of Arimathea, you and I had put Jesus into a tomb—wrapped, signed, sealed, and delivered. But when we get a good look into the tomb three days later, everything is unwrapped. Nothing is as we left it. Nothing is as it should be. Now, we cannot even count on death. Easter has changed the rules.

No wonder the women fled the tomb in fear. We may not care much for death, but we understand it. We know that it's impossible to ignore. It is what sets the agenda for the rest of life. That is why we push so hard at life—against aging, against diseases, against terrorists. We want to stay away from death as long as possible.

But if death is not waiting at the end, then everything in life has to change. We have to start over. We have to discover a whole new purpose for life.

According to Easter, the point of life isn't to collect as many things as possible before it is too late, or to hold your loved ones as tightly as possible before you have to give them back, or to waste your precious few years of life trying to postpone death. (Never confuse life with postponing death.) According to Easter, the point of life is to discover a death-defying hope.

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April 1 2002, Vol. 46, No. 4