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People flood churches on Easter because they know they are going to hear good news. But Easter is also terrifying news. According to Mark's Gospel, early on a Sunday morning Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome made their way to a tomb to anoint the dead body of Jesus. Mark also tells us that these women had earlier watched the crucifixion of Jesus "from a distance" (Mark 15:40). When it was all over, they saw Joseph of Arimathea pull the dead body off the cross, wrap it in a linen cloth, lay it in a tomb hewn out of a rock, and then roll the stone over the door of the tomb. They watched it all from a distance.

That is our favorite perspective on death—we do all we can to keep our distance from it. We try to stay healthy, work out, watch what we eat, and we're careful. So careful. It's all a way of keeping death at bay. But occasionally it catches up to someone you love, and then you know, like these women, that you have to go and see death up close.

Last September 11, it became painfully clear that death can always bridge the distance to find any of us. What crumbled on that dark day were not just skyscrapers, but also our illusions that we were somehow safe from the violence the rest of the world has known for a very long time. It doesn't matter how wealthy, well defended, or far removed we are from evil men. Terror can still find us. Every time I drive past the Pentagon and gaze at the gaping wound in its side, I'm reminded that not even powerful generals and admirals in a seemingly impenetrable fortress can keep death at a distance. What hope do the rest of us have?

In the aftermath of that dark day, many of our social commentators repeatedly said, "Everything has changed." It remains to be seen just how much we have changed beyond tolerating longer lines at the airports and pasting American flags onto our cars. Maybe the soul of the nation is changing as well. Maybe. But clearly one of the undeniable marks of being an American today is that we all miss the naïveté we enjoyed on September 10.

The women who made their way to the tomb on the first Easter morning had been with Jesus since Galilee. Ah, Galilee. How far that delightful place must have seemed from this place of death. In Galilee, Jesus had been so full of life and was constantly restoring the lives of others. Before Mary Magdalene met him, her soul had been torn apart by seven demons. All of the women knew they were something less before meeting Jesus. This man was their Savior. But now he was dead.

Maybe as the women walked down the road toward the tomb, someone mentioned that the world has always been hard on saviors. Or like most people in deep grief, maybe they said nothing at all as they quietly closed the distance between themselves and the tomb of death. Their only dilemma, according to Mark, was how they would get that huge stone rolled back.

We also know about pushing against a huge stone. We have all been pushing against something for a long time. Maybe this Easter finds you pushing against a supervisor who is hard to satisfy or against the threat of being downsized from your job. Or maybe you are pushing against a marriage that seems destined for the ditch. Or you're pushing against a disease, depression, loneliness, or some obstacle that is between you and your dreams. Lately, we've all been pushing against the anxiety that terrorists will strike again. We think that if we can just get this burdensome thing rolled back, we'll be fine. But as the story goes, even if we get rid of the huge stone, all that is waiting on the other side is death.

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April 1 2002, Vol. 46, No. 4