King Solomon is the author of the book of Ecclesiastes. Curiously, Solomon used language related to clockwork when he wrote down his thoughts on eternity. Like a watchmaker setting the clock as he is laboring over his handiwork – our Creator has “timed” our hearts, and guess what: our heart clocks are set on eternity. Somehow, eternity is in our DNA.

I was in first grade when our teacher told us that one of our classmates had passed away in a car accident just the other day.  It disturbed me to learn the bad news. Up to this point I had never known anybody in person who had passed away. All of a sudden, death hit close to home and it made me aware how fragile we are. Anybody could die in a car accident. Just like that, Ruth (that was the name of my late classmate) was killed. Yesterday I played with her, today she was gone. I wondered – where did Ruth go?

Death just didn’t sit well with me. It never really does, and rightly so, because – as Solomon puts it – our Creator has not set us up this way. We are made for eternity.

Our lives have a purpose, but unfortunately death is detrimental to this purpose. This is probably a major reason why the Son of God hates death. His mission is to save us so we have a chance to live out our purpose. He emerged from the grave, giving us physical evidence that He has conquered death.

Is it easy to believe? Yes and no. We cannot fabricate faith. We cannot make believe that the story of Easter is true. However, it is still easy to believe because faith ultimately is a gift from God. He lifts the veil so we can see.

We all have to face our physical departure one day when our bodies give out and our hearts stop beating. Nevertheless, our physical passing is not the end of us. If our life story had to be written down, death would be the mere beginning of our book – with countless pages still waiting to be filled.

Thanks to Jesus, the end of our lives will only be the beginning; following our passing, eternity has just begun.