An Easter Weekend — Pat Dryburgh

So, this past Easter marked the 2nd time for two significant occasions. One, it marks the second time I have not been home for Easter weekend (aside from the time my brother had a hockey tournament over Easter weekend, and our family did the egg hunt in our hotel room). Two, it marks the second time I have been to church on Easter Sunday.

Good Friday was a little rough, in my view. The bottom line was that God and humanity were at a stalemate, and that it was God who made the first move to reconciliation. It was also a communion Sunday, and Carey (our lead pastor) made an excellent analogy between Jesus taking the punishment for our sins, and a skiing helmet he had on stage that had been wrecked from an accident. In the accident, the skier had hit his head so hard, that the helmet cracked and the foam was compressed to where you couldn’t press your nail into it. The point was that Jesus absorbed the consequence for our sins. It was quite powerful.

The music we chose didn’t flow as well as I had hoped. We did:

Draw me Close
Once Again
Here I am to Worship
Forever

First, I would never, ever start a service with a song as slow and downbeat as Draw Me Close. Second, I would never include Forever in a Good Friday service (again). Once Again and Here I am to Worship were both for communion, and fit well.

Overall, the whole service didn’t flow very well. It seemed very disconnected.

On a side note, I wrote a song for this service that we didn’t use, but will most likely use later down the road as a communion song. It is called “You Paid It All” and the chorus is:

You paid it all
You took my place
Gave me your life
When you died on that day
And You paid it all
Your loving embrace
Became my life when you called me by name
You paid it all

Sunday was quite a bit better, from my perspective. The bottom line was that Jesus cares about us, even if we feel we’ve put ourselves out of the game. The overall idea is that no matter what we’ve done, Jesus is still loves us.

The songs were:

Sing to the King
O Praise Him
The Beautiful Letdown (Special Piece)
Happy Day

The only one I would have changed is O Praise Him, and that is only because it wasn’t as solidly connected to the Easter theme as the others. However, the video we played behind the song was incredible. You can check it out at highwayvideo.com under the name “All This For A King.”

This coming week should be much better, as I’m finally out from the cloud I have been under the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure what it was, but I feel a much greater sense of clarity now.

※