Good Friday=Stressful Friday

The last time I looked, Easter was supposed to be a celebration. Yay! Jesus died on Good Friday, taking the punishment for our sins, and rose from the grave on Easter, defeating sin and death! 

It is so great and wonderful! I get excited just thinking about it! What better thing is there for us to celebrate and rejoice?! Nothing!

But if you are anything like me then just about the time you start building excitement for Good Friday and Easter something inevitably goes wrong. It is like clock work! 

Two years ago it was a church event that went terribly wrong due to the weather. We were supposed to have an outside Easter Egg Hunt and the the rain came pouring down. We had already bought the eggs, the candy, the bounce houses, and everything else so we had to do something with them! It took a few hours to figure out what to do with 1,000 unused Easter Eggs. We ended up packaging them in white paper sacks and putting stick-on labels on the front that read 'You've been Egg'd by Vintage Church Allen' on the front with an invitation to Easter Service. We passed out the sacks in the local neighborhood in hopes of salvaging something descent out of the effort. Needless to say the heartache of the event being cancelled and the extra work to package and distribute the Egg Sacks took its toll. My wife is still experiencing PESD (Post Easter Stress Disorder) from the whole ordeal.

This year it hit from almost every angle. Business deals got crazy stressful and the yearly church Easter Egg Hunt looked like it was going to be understaffed with just a couple of days until the event. I just started feeling the pressure and stress of old come back when I was reminded of why we do this. We don't celebrate for perfect events or easy business transactions. We are simply sharing the love and message of Jesus with our neighbors! It is that simple! Events do not go perfectly! Business sometimes falls through! But Jesus never fails us! It was in the worst of historical events that Jesus won his greatest victory!

In much the same way, in my most stressful and difficult experiences that I am forced to turn back to the simple beauty of why we celebrate Good Friday and Easter. In those times I have nothing else to turn to. I am at the end of my own strength and feel like I have to give up trying. That's when I remember: Jesus took the burden on himself! Jesus bears the weight himself! I simply need to lay down my burdens at his feet.

Matthew 11:28- 

'28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'

So I ask you this: What burdens are you carrying? What heartache is weighing you down? And what will it take for you to lay it down and rest at the feet of your savior?

It is not worth holding on to.

May you hold on loosly to your life and tightly to Jesus. And may you experience peace and rest in his presence this Easter season.