Christmas. Easter. Weddings. Funerals.

A lot of people never go to church, and even more people rarely go—trust me, I understand this fact quite well. But of the people who routinely go to church, there are four occasions when all of them always go:

Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals.

Sure, there are cultural norms driving attendance for these events—everybody does it, no need to read into it, right?

[Editor’s note: Are you new here?]

Of course we need to read into it, because there has to be a reason regular church attendance is common but attendance on these four occasions is the culturally accepted default. When you look at the core message of the Mt. Rushmore of church services, there’s definitely a common thread that stands out from standard Sunday fare.

A typical church service tends to focus on how to live. When you attend church during a mundane season, you’re probably going to get lessons for making it through the mundane. But Christmas and its three friends are different. You’re not working your way through something, you’re celebrating something. The birth of Jesus, the resurrection, two lives united, one life . . . completed.

Now, you’ve probably been to at least one funeral at which someone said it wasn’t supposed to be a sad occasion but rather a celebration of life. And maybe it was. Maybe the Big 4 church services are popular because of the things they celebrate.

Yeah. Maybe. But if you peel another layer off that onion, what you’re going to find isn’t all that happy. Because the messages we hear at each of those four services address the biggest, baddest fears in all the land: the fear of being alone, and the fear of death.

At a funeral, you’ll probably hear a message about life after death. Fear not, our dearly departed has gone from our presence and into the presence of God. Forget for a second the question about whether that’s true and think instead about the fact that it’s exactly what we want to hear. Death is scary. Change is scary, and one of the most consistent aspects of our existence is the continuity of time and awareness.

Aside: Sleep is really pretty strange. You close your eyes, you open them up, and it’s like you’ve travelled forward in time . . . and maybe there was a movie on the flight. But that’s not how it feels, is it? No. It feels more like we’ve missed something. Its like the part of us that’s really us has left and come back. It’s almost as though we have a little dance with death every night. And every morning, like Cinderella after the ball, we wake up in our beds wondering if we’ll ever see the prince again. Except we know we will.

When someone dies, we mourn their loss—but our own mortality gets shoved in our face, too. The reality and inevitability of death make their presence known far less subtly when someone near to us dies than when we lay our heads down to sleep, and the question of what awaits a departed soul confronts our attention with greater, more intense persistence. We all know this fear as very real, but, as it is with its brother in inevitability (tax day), we have the luxury of not thinking much about death until something reminds us it’s coming.

Funerals remind us of death, and they provide little distraction from anything but the reality of it. It’s this crazy controlled environment where we know everyone is staring their own fear of death in the face . . . or looking for somewhere else to look.

So when someone stands up in front of a group of people whose focus is laser-locked on mortality, of course the thing they want to say more than anything is, “Don’t worry, you guys, death isn’t the end,” and of course that’s what we all want to hear.

And today, right now, I invite you to neither ask nor answer the question, Yeah, but is it true? For the sake of nonargument, leave it a mystery. Just keep your eyes on that uncomfortable truth that death is a mystery, and that mystery is terrifying.

The role of a funeral is to address that indefinable, uncontainable terror. That’s the big reason why everyone goes. We know we might not wind up in a hospital or in a nursing home, so we can afford not to think about those places and we can afford not to visit. But we’re all headed for the funeral home—we don’t really want to skip orientation.

And that’s why Easter is so important too, right? Resurrection Sunday gives us the power to look at death on our terms. Over? This ain’t over! Death is a failure. Nice try, Death, really. But I’ve got bad news for you: today, your ass is getting kicked by both Jesus AND Reese’s! 

Why wouldn’t we go to that? Easter service addresses the same fears a funeral does, but it takes up an offensive position against death. Funerals feel like a loss (duh). Easter feels like a win. A win against our greatest fear: death.

Now, Jerry Seinfeld jokes that death is only our second greatest fear—public speaking is the champ. “So for most people at a funeral, they’d rather be in the casket then giving the eulogy.” Adam, please tell me you’re not going to deconstruct a Seinfeld joke.

. . . I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.

. . .

I’m really sorry.

. . .

Really. Sorry.

So, anyway, when you take apart this idea of public speaking being even scarier than death, what is the thing that makes public speaking what it is? There’s a crowd of people, and then there’s one person removed from that crowd and standing all by themselves.

Removed from the crowd. Being observed. Being evaluated. Being judged. Because when you’re a human, being isolated is judgment itself. It’s the punishment for being bad. The worse you are, the more heinous your crime, the deeper into isolation the criminal shall be sent.

The fear of public speaking isn’t the fear of speaking or the fear of being in public; it’s (you guessed it) the fear of being alone.

Enter weddings. Weddings are a celebration of love, but they are also the answer to our fear of loneliness. Yes, Captain, and yes, Tennille, love will keep us together—but God will keep you together. God is love, after all. Alone? No, you’re not going to be alone. You have each other, and you have God.

You don’t have to be afraid of being alone, even if you’re not married or no longer married (wait, I thought God would keep us together) because why? Hello, Christmas. God sent His very own Son Jesus, very God of very God, to show us that we aren’t alone on this earth or in this universe. Fear not, there is more!

The fear of being alone is very real, very persistent, and quite unpredictable and spontaneous. Weddings and Christmas celebrate the idea that those fears are unfounded. No wonder so many people join in the celebration. And that’s kind of the funny thing . . . being alone is a fear we have a lot of control over.

As individuals, we can seek out other people, we can initiate and cultivate relationships. We can join groups and associations of people who surround us and bolster us with connection and security and purpose.

But those groups can wield that power over loneliness and leverage it against our corresponding fears. At those big four services, they often do just that. Stick with us, and you’ll never be alone. Live like us, and death will have no power over you. Step out of line, and . . . well, good luck with your fears.

I’m not sure I have a whole lot more to add. I’m sorry, this isn’t a post where I shine a big bright light of hope about what awaits us after death. But, I do think there is value in recognizing and facing our fears. If we accept that we’re afraid of being alone or . . . being dead, we can at least protect ourselves from the people who exploit those fears.

When we can be at peace with our fears, we equip ourselves with more than luck. Perhaps the only things we really need are an open mind and open arms.

Share the . . . joy?