I'm Too Busy for Easter

Christmas is always a crazy time, crammed full with parties, shopping, travel, cooking, and extra events with the church family. Some people jokingly dread Christmas - some have very real, debilitating anxiety over Christmas. The best part about New Year's Day is that it's a real day off without Christmas stuff to do. (Am I alone in finding an unsettling irony that a calendar holiday is more relaxing than a Christian holiday?)

Easter is not much better - gotta buy the eggs, gotta prepare the eggs, gotta hide the eggs, gotta help the kids find the eggs, gotta remember where the last three eggs are hidden so that they don't stink in a couple of weeks. This Easter has been particularly busy, with the odd weather and an illness in the family and taxes due right around the corner. Don't get me wrong - I love Easter and I'm a decent fan of Christmas. But my calendar and task list are wearing out.

I'm too busy for Easter! (And I'm a pastor!) I don't have time this week for it. I'd like to reschedule it, please.

That's exactly the problem: I'm too busy for Easter. Not that my stuff is more important than Easter, but that I haven't left room for that which is truly important. I have made choices that make my life too occupied, too crammed full, and too full of myself.  I have not created adequate space in my week for the most important holiday on the calendar. Worse than that, too often I have not created adequate space in my life for what this most important holiday means. I'm too busy for Easter and all that it embodies.

The beauty of Easter is how everything is centered on one, single truth. The one sacrifice by the one and only Son of God, once for all, calling on us to do but one thing in response. By grace through faith in just this one reality, I can be forgiven and have all the time that there will ever be in order to be with Him and to do His will. Compare this one thing to the hundreds of laws of religion, the millions of animals that have been sacrificed on altars, the myriads of demands that religiosity has placed on its captives. Just that one act by the One. Simple. Focused. Not too busy for anyone or anything.

My life should be about just this. I should never be too busy for Easter or for all that it means, because my entire life should always be all about it. Sure, I can do other things that are not directly tied to the substance of Easter, but my life should never be about those things. And especially, my life should not be so crammed full with them that I don't have time for Easter - the Easter holiday this week, the Easter event two millennia ago, or the Easter life to be lived in its 2000-year-long shadow.

I'm too busy for Easter. I should be too busy with Easter.